getting rid of mites naturally?

[chooks4life]

Thanks tons.... im more worried now though... he is still pretty lethargic and now im tginking he may have been less active the last day or so.... we kept him in all night and even though his feathers look better he isnt feeling any better... and since hes beenin the house all night I can now see I think he has pretty bad diarrhea... hes not up and about this morning and when I took him outside and sat him down he just stayed there... I threw some scratch down for him even tho he has had access to it all night along with his acv water and he didnt even try to eat... he actually took two steps and laid on the food and that was it... he didnt perk up at all! The girls all looked okay and active upon inspection but he looks like he feels like crap..n now im thinking it may be worms geeze this is all I need.... I dont even get paid for two more days... im not sure hes gonna make it

If there was a severe infestation or a concurrent problem there's every chance some disease or parasite has overrun his immune system while he was below par health wise. A disease he was incubating may have taken a more active role now. He may be severely anemic, there's a lot of things that could be wrong, potentially. It's not uncommon for parasites to carry other problems with them, i.e. viruses. The diarrhea sounds like something else has hit while he's down, probably viral. If so, giving him sugar is not recommendable, as that simplified, overprocessed form of sugar directly feeds everything from opportunistic life forms including harmful bacteria, to cancers. I'd replace the sugar with honey.

Best wishes.

 

[chrisnjenny]

Thanks for the info... Fred didnt improve though and he passed away tuesday morning this being our first chicken death and my kids favorite chicken it was hard on our family... my 5 yr old cried all that night she was devistated, so we had a traditional shoebox funeral (somthing I wouldnt had done had she not been so upset) and we said a prayer (or three) and yesterday morning it was back to buisness as usual.... all my other chicken seem fine thank God as I cant go through that again anytime soon... my kids are country make no mistake and they understand that eventually our chickens will be dinner but this is the first pet we have had die on us and like I said they were particularlly fond of this rooster soim glad the crying and upset only lasted that day... RIP Fred hope you like it in chicken heaven. as for the cause it is prolly just what you said; somthin got him while he was already down. After all the reading I have done ive decided to worm my flock as a preventative measure and when I suspect someone isnt feeling well in the future I will be mutch more cautious and quicker to act... what a hard lesson to learn. Thanks for the understanding and advice I appriciate it. I have done my best from the begining of my new "hobby" (for lack of a better term) to learn all I can and stay proactive in keeping my flock healthy. This just came as a hard blow to my self confidence and quite the reality check I might add. Again, thanks for your advice you actually made me feel a little better about it in a weird way.

 

[chooks4life]

Thanks for the info... Fred didnt improve though and he passed away tuesday morning

this being our first chicken death and my kids favorite chicken it was hard on our family... my 5 yr old cried all that night she was devistated, so we had a traditional shoebox funeral (somthing I wouldnt had done had she not been so upset) and we said a prayer (or three) and yesterday morning it was back to buisness as usual.... all my other chicken seem fine thank God as I cant go through that again anytime soon... my kids are country make no mistake and they understand that eventually our chickens will be dinner but this is the first pet we have had die on us and like I said they were particularlly fond of this rooster soim glad the crying and upset only lasted that day... RIP Fred hope you like it in chicken heaven.

as for the cause it is prolly just what you said; somthin got him while he was already down. After all the reading I have done ive decided to worm my flock as a preventative measure and when I suspect someone isnt feeling well in the future I will be mutch more cautious and quicker to act... what a hard lesson to learn. Thanks for the understanding and advice I appriciate it. I have done my best from the begining of my new "hobby" (for lack of a better term) to learn all I can and stay proactive in keeping my flock healthy. This just came as a hard blow to my self confidence and quite the reality check I might add. Again, thanks for your advice you actually made me feel a little better about it in a weird way.

Sorry for your loss. It did sound pretty serious.

Don't take it harshly, if you've done your best that's all that you could have done. You'll do better when you know more but no matter how much you learn there's always going to be those odd cases that go down so hard and fast you won't know what happened, and quite often the vets can't figure it out either. It doesn't mean you're a slack poultry keeper or at fault, though it sure can feel like it. Mystery deaths happen to absolutely everyone who keeps them, sooner or later, quite often with little or no warning.

Some people have a run of bad luck right from the start, some have an easy run and think it's all their skills or knowledge causing this, only to suffer bad luck later; the reality is that the ongoing health of your flock is based on far more factors than you can completely control or understand. We still don't have a complete understanding of any given aspect of chickens, just some well-researched areas.

If you're doing the best you can, keep some confidence in that being good enough; completely losing confidence leads to dangerous second-guessing and sometimes over-analyzing which can and often does contribute to more deaths than gung-ho overconfidence does... Strange but true.

Best wishes with the rest of your flock.

 

[MelissaZeno]

Is the Sevin that is mentioned above the one found in the garden section at the stores?

 

[casportpony]

Is the Sevin that is mentioned above the one found in the garden section at the stores?

Yes, 5% Sevin Powder.

-Kathy

 

[MelissaZeno]

Thank you I will try to figure out which option is best. Thank you again.

 

[chooks4life]

Thank you I will try to figure out which option is best. Thank you again.

Good luck with that. If the infestation is severe, of course one should do whatever is needed to ensure it is taken care of as quickly as possible.

Back when I first began with animals, I used chemicals and vaccinations just to be sure; only after years of learning and practice did I become well read enough, confident enough, and practiced enough to begin using natural treatments. They certainly can and do work, but it takes some learning to ensure success, and best not for people new to natural therapies to risk lives unnecessarily, if they don't know enough about it yet, when dealing with advanced disease or infection or infestation.

Certainly you should never feel bad about resorting to something artificial if your knowledge of, or access to, natural therapies is insufficient; the life of the animal is more important than adhering to philosophies or always trying to do the least harmful thing. Sometimes precise keyhole surgery as a treatment is trumped by bashing the whole organism with a sledgehammer, to use a crude analogy.

Some people go overboard with judgments on those who use artificial or natural therapies and both camps are doing the other camp as well as their own a short-sighted injustice, to say nothing of the animals involved. Some jump on all failures of natural therapy as indication of it being useless when almost as a rule the failure was human error; not to say natural therapies are perfect nor infallible at all, just that those who judge them most viciously and vociferously generally failed to use them properly, lol! They also conveniently tend to forget that there are failure rates for conventional/artificial therapies too.

Whatever you use, I hope it works. Best wishes.

 

[MelissaZeno]

I just bought Critter Ritter Blend from My Pet Chicken, as well as Grandma's All-Natural Coop Dust.

 

[Roxannemc]

Thanks for the photo of the mites.I see ppl say I have mites..how do you tell?All the Talk of mites freaks me out.I Have had most of my birds 3 or 4 years..never seen a mite that I know of..but most of my birds aren't thrilled with handling to look closely..By the w ay I have picked up wild baby birds and had red mites walk out on my hand.Would that happen with chickens too?
I clean my coops every couple months but don't spray.
I just feel Like all this time I should see some problem
some mite or something.I have picked up 7 of my birds the last few weeks to sell never got a bug on me..
My birds that aren't breeding yet all look good as do my roos but my laying hens are a mess since I had 10 or 14 roosters.Have sold 6 but girls look terrible except a few who are with a gentle roo
roo
Bad one's have .bare backs heads and no tails on some but wonder if it's mites and not just roos and molt.. Can some be perfect with mites and others a huge mess and roos with them look fine?
I havent seen one bug but some roaches now and again in my coops but can I see them during the day?even one..? I've looked closely. I have 11 tractor coops.
Nobody on BYC seems to say how they found the mites.Is it obvious?
Thanks for any help..UPDATE..checked the 3 coops with beat up girls.its dark I don't see one thing.I'm worried about 2 who skin is very red.almost looks rashy.Anything I can do for their bare skin.There are 2 roos in with 5 girls.They aren't super aggressive roos and picked on by the other roos.Rest of mine are free range.

 

[chooks4life]

Thanks for the photo of the mites.I see ppl say I have mites..how do you tell?All the Talk of mites freaks me out.I Have had most of my birds 3 or 4 years..never seen a mite that I know of..but most of my birds aren't thrilled with handling to look closely..By the w ay I have picked up wild baby birds and had red mites walk out on my hand.Would that happen with chickens too?

I clean my coops every couple months but don't spray.
I just feel Like all this time I should see some problem
some mite or something.I have picked up 7 of my birds the last few weeks to sell never got a bug on me..

It's important to remember that in the wild, parasites both internal and external are a rule, basically, not an occasional occurrence; the problem of overburden causing disease only occurs when the animal is run down from other causes, or unable to clean itself of parasites whether through diet or preening, both of which methods animals use to keep their parasite load down.

Naturally, there are genetic predispositions to being either susceptible or resistant to parasites, but a more natural lifestyle enables full health in a way that caged animals will never know, to say nothing of quality of life.

Never seen mites do that to hens, but have seen bad roosters do that to them; the fact that the girls with the nice roo, and the roos themselves, are fine, says a lot. I only keep nice males so my hens never have 'overmating' syndrome, lol. Nasty males tend to pluck hens bare and it's not excusable, the sheer amount of force required to rip out feathers is totally unnecessary to mating.

People often find them by chance. You can sometimes see lice eggs on the feathers around their eyes, crusty buildup on legs if it's scaly leg mite, eggs or adult mites in cracks or crevices on perches or in the cage if that's the species you've got, or in the nesting material... Sometimes handling the hen will show you the lice... Sometimes you'll see them on the eggs on the nest... Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes not.

If your males think there's no other way to mate but by holding onto feathers, your girls aren't likely to regrow them anytime soon. Contrary to popular belief it's actually also normal for them to mate without biting onto hens at all; but some males do, some don't... Kind of like some sugar gliders in captivity maul females while mating, while others don't bite at all while mating; both are 'normal' but only one is 'natural'. The problems with domestic animals are commonly social, not just physical. That's what happens when one breeds instinct out of animals.

As for the skin being red, that is just a breed trait with some and runs in family lines; others may have bacterial infections or be sensitive to plants or substances around your place; it can be a parasite causing it, or thyroid problems... Anyway it probably needs no more treatment than removing the males from the females, but, you could apply something like Vaseline I guess most folks would use, or Lukas's PawPaw Ointment, which I'd probably use, etc.

Best wishes.