Growing my little flock

[DonyaQuick]

Well the cursed year holds true to a degree...went out for a couple hours today having checked scruffy and her chicks, and came home to find her enclosure looking like a mite bomb went off. She and her chicks were out of the nest and didn't want to touch anything wooden - for a good reason, if I touched anything wood my hand was swarming with mites in less than a second. I have no idea what kind of mites these are but they are not the northern fowl mites I've had experience with before and they are also definitely not red roost mites (thank god for that honestly). They are the fasest moving mites I've ever seen and they have a strong desire to go up...like up to the top of a piece of wood. Very bizarre. They are most similar to grain mites I've had to deal with before, but they were not in the feed. I permethrin powdered Scruffy just in case and took tiny pinches of it to lightly powder itty bitty butts. Everyone is fine and showing no signs of being bitten that I can see, but I had to move them to a rather bare-bones, no-nest setup while I treat everything.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Still can't figure out what these mites are or exactly how they had a population boom so fast. It's driving me nuts. And they get on EVERYTHING so fast - I got covered in mites from treating Scruffy earlier today, thew my clothes in a plastic hamper to wash them, and within only a couple minutes they'd run off my old clothes and were swarming all over the top of the hamper.

The most frustrating thing here is I don't think I'm tooting my own horn when saying that I was pretty meticulous leading up to these chicks. I checked every feather on Scruffy's butt and was very thorough on the rest of her body too. None of my chickens go more than a couple days without a butt check (even grouchy Mr. Cuddles Junior gets a rotine butt inspection!) and I regularly check skin and feathers on elsewhere on everybody too. I checked everyone after this event too - zero evidence of bugs on anybody else in any flock. So I don't know where the darned things came from.

I think the painted enclosure I made will recover from the mite event since I gave it an Elector PSP hosedown. The mites that were sarming it seem to have left and/or died in place. The unpained nestbox though is a nightmare even after being soaked the same as the enclosure; they are all up in that plywood at the edges where there are crevices to crawl into and having a party. That nest box might be a throw-away.

I am wondering if these bugs could have come from either some of the wood I bought or the brand new shavings bag I had opened to fill the nest. I have since read that reptile folks recommend letting all types of wood bedding sit for several weeks in the bag unopened before using it because of the risk of mites. I didn't do that with this bag or the wood; straight into the house after purchase and opened/used. I guess I will have to be more cautious with that since I can't find a more plausible hypothesis. I still have a ton of leftover OSB from the shed conversion last year; I guess I could build a new nest box from that stuff pretty safely since it's been sitting indoors for nearly a year now.

 

[2ndTink]

Oh no! I hope you can kill those things off and fast! The feed I had been using for 3 years started getting grain mites, so I've switched feed. But they would go everywhere, I keep my feed in the shop and they'd be on all the tools, every surface, uck it was nasty!

 

[DonyaQuick]

Oh no! I hope you can kill those things off and fast! The feed I had been using for 3 years started getting grain mites, so I've switched feed. But they would go everywhere, I keep my feed in the shop and they'd be on all the tools, every surface, uck it was nasty!

Grain mites are so gross...they are a seasonal pestilence in my area because of how wet the summers are - they just come in from the outside to whatever feed is there. Nothing I've tried to far works on them either except rubbing permethrin powder into areas of wood where they tend to congretate, but that doesn't keep them off the feed. This year I may try adding a bit of food grade DE to the feed and see if it helps at all.

As for the mites I'm fighting currently, I'm now pretty sure that they are tropical fowl mites. That means they can't exist outside here (at least not this time of year), but indoors where it was deliberately kept 70F+ for several days with nice moisture added from chick poos, and boom - perfect conditions for them. If I'm right with that ID, it would also explain why they're all squishing gray and not leaving the red/brown smears like blood-feeding mites do. I gather the tropical variety doesn't feed on blood for the first couple growth phases - they mainly do it in their last life stage. Maybe I caught it early enough to avoid that!

I had a partial bag of finer shavings I've been using for the mighty Goob and had no issues with it, so chicks got some of that today. Just to be safe, I pre-treated it with permethrin powder shaking it up in a bucket to mix it up and remove excess dust. So far so good. No sign of mites on chicks still and not having them come off of Scruffy anymore when I pet her. Still no nest box replacement (really don't want to give those bugs another porous surface to crawl into) but fortunately Scruffy doesn't seem too bothered about it.

Oh and I forgot to post this one from just before the mite mess - a couple chicks are already getting snuggly! One of them in particular loves hand hugs.

 

[2ndTink]

Grain mites are so gross...they are a seasonal pestilence in my area because of how wet the summers are - they just come in from the outside to whatever feed is there. Nothing I've tried to far works on them either except rubbing permethrin powder into areas of wood where they tend to congretate, but that doesn't keep them off the feed. This year I may try adding a bit of food grade DE to the feed and see if it helps at all.

As for the mites I'm fighting currently, I'm now pretty sure that they are tropical fowl mites. That means they can't exist outside here (at least not this time of year), but indoors where it was deliberately kept 70F+ for several days with nice moisture added from chick poos, and boom - perfect conditions for them. If I'm right with that ID, it would also explain why they're all squishing gray and not leaving the red/brown smears like blood-feeding mites do. I gather the tropical variety doesn't feed on blood for the first couple growth phases - they mainly do it in their last life stage. Maybe I caught it early enough to avoid that!

I had a partial bag of finer shavings I've been using for the mighty Goob and had no issues with it, so chicks got some of that today. Just to be safe, I pre-treated it with permethrin powder shaking it up in a bucket to mix it up and remove excess dust. So far so good. No sign of mites on chicks still and not having them come off of Scruffy anymore when I pet her. Still no nest box replacement (really don't want to give those bugs another porous surface to crawl into) but fortunately Scruffy doesn't seem too bothered about it.

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Oh and I forgot to post this one from just before the mite mess - a couple chicks are already getting snuggly! One of them in particular loves hand hugs.

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It looks like everyone's doing good! Hand hugs, that's adorable

We have one brand of feed that gets horrible grain mites, it started 2 years ago, and even through the enter this year they were crawling and massing up at the feed store. Oddly, it's just one brand, so I don't know if that's a sign that feed is great, healthy, bug preferred and all natural, or a bad sign of manufacturing practices.

 

[DonyaQuick]

These little floofs are amazing. They are so much less athletic than every other batch of chicks I've had though LOL right now I could probably keep them contained in just a 4" high square on the floor. They are being very temperature hardy though for only being a week old.

Mites are getting under control. The fact that they wanted to climb up to the top of everything made it easy to get rid of them fast: I just rubbed permethrin dust all over the top surfaces of the enclosure and the bugs climbed right up to their doom. I do think I'm right on the ID since I unfortunately did find one mite on Scruffy today that squashed red - so any remaining ones must have just reached the phase of feeding on birds, which is about right timing-wise for what I read about tropical fowl mites. It was super hot today so I took everyone outside and gave Scruffy a hefty Elector PSP spray down. I'm still not seeing any mites on the chicks so will just let them be protected indirectly via Scruffy and the substrate. Tomorrow I will give Scruffy one more bit of powder and add in some more permethrin-treated substrate and hopefully that'll be the end of worrying about bugs.

We have one brand of feed that gets horrible grain mites, it started 2 years ago, and even through the enter this year they were crawling and massing up at the feed store. Oddly, it's just one brand, so I don't know if that's a sign that feed is great, healthy, bug preferred and all natural, or a bad sign of manufacturing practices.

It wasn't Cluck 'n Co by chance was it? My chickens really loved their chick feed in particular and the cockerels were also very fond of their all flock, but I got tired of how many larger bugs were clearly getting into the bags before it even hit the shelves - not just grainmites but bigger things like miller moths that can really decimate whole grain content in a bag pretty rapidly. Unfortuantely I think bugs like that in organic feed does speak to the true organic-ness of it but also to a sloppy packing process.

 

[2ndTink]

These little floofs are amazing. They are so much less athletic than every other batch of chicks I've had though LOL right now I could probably keep them contained in just a 4" high square on the floor. They are being very temperature hardy though for only being a week old.

View attachment 3854686

Mites are getting under control. The fact that they wanted to climb up to the top of everything made it easy to get rid of them fast: I just rubbed permethrin dust all over the top surfaces of the enclosure and the bugs climbed right up to their doom. I do think I'm right on the ID since I unfortunately did find one mite on Scruffy today that squashed red - so any remaining ones must have just reached the phase of feeding on birds, which is about right timing-wise for what I read about tropical fowl mites. It was super hot today so I took everyone outside and gave Scruffy a hefty Elector PSP spray down. I'm still not seeing any mites on the chicks so will just let them be protected indirectly via Scruffy and the substrate. Tomorrow I will give Scruffy one more bit of powder and add in some more permethrin-treated substrate and hopefully that'll be the end of worrying about bugs.


It wasn't Cluck 'n Co by chance was it? My chickens really loved their chick feed in particular and the cockerels were also very fond of their all flock, but I got tired of how many larger bugs were clearly getting into the bags before it even hit the shelves - not just grainmites but bigger things like miller moths that can really decimate whole grain content in a bag pretty rapidly. Unfortuantely I think bugs like that in organic feed does speak to the true organic-ness of it but also to a sloppy packing process.

No, it was Naturewise, I still check the nags at the feed store as the chickens seemed to do really well on it, and still seeing piles of mites

 

[DonyaQuick]

Poor little Dimple hurt her foot somehow! She's been doing the wing dance for other hens again lately so I'll be she got the injury doing that since her dances are pretty crazy, and it's her dance-kicking foot that got injured. This week is the first time I've seen her doing the rooster dance since she was broody a couple years back; she sure is an odd one! Turns out she had an itty bitty bumble with a very sharp bit of some kind of foreign object stuck in the foot pad. There was very little going on in the wound, so I think I caught it early just as inflammation was starting to set in. Unfortunately I lost the sharp thing I pulled out before I could get a good look at it, so I will never know what it was exactly. Anyway, 3.5lb Dimple is too tiny for a gause pad so I put ointment on a regular old band-aid and then wrapped that. No limp or anything - she's still bouncy little Dimple, just with a fancy shoe for now.

Oh - and I'd had this super weird feeling for a while now like Dimple has been shrinking, yet every time I weigh her out of paranoia she's the same 3.5lbs! Now I know why I felt like that: I finally weighed Mr. Monster for the first time in ages and he's nearly 9lbs now! Those two are often on my lap together so that'll be it. I guess that dude hasn't actually stopped growing even though he's 2 years old. My dream of a 10lb roo may come true yet LOL.

Meanwhile, the mighty Goob is healing well and is 7.5lbs already. He's going to be massive if he keeps growing for as long as his dad has.

 

[fuzzi]

Poor little Dimple hurt her foot somehow! She's been doing the wing dance for other hens again lately so I'll be she got the injury doing that since her dances are pretty crazy, and it's her dance-kicking foot that got injured. This week is the first time I've seen her doing the rooster dance since she was broody a couple years back; she sure is an odd one! Turns out she had an itty bitty bumble with a very sharp bit of some kind of foreign object stuck in the foot pad. There was very little going on in the wound, so I think I caught it early just as inflammation was starting to set in. Unfortunately I lost the sharp thing I pulled out before I could get a good look at it, so I will never know what it was exactly. Anyway, 3.5lb Dimple is too tiny for a gause pad so I put ointment on a regular old band-aid and then wrapped that. No limp or anything - she's still bouncy little Dimple, just with a fancy shoe for now.
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Oh - and I'd had this super weird feeling for a while now like Dimple has been shrinking, yet every time I weigh her out of paranoia she's the same 3.5lbs! Now I know why I felt like that: I finally weighed Mr. Monster for the first time in ages and he's nearly 9lbs now! Those two are often on my lap together so that'll be it. I guess that dude hasn't actually stopped growing even though he's 2 years old. My dream of a 10lb roo may come true yet LOL.

Meanwhile, the mighty Goob is healing well and is 7.5lbs already. He's going to be massive if he keeps growing for as long as his dad has.

It looks like Dimple is wearing a leg warmer!

 

[2ndTink]

Poor little Dimple hurt her foot somehow! She's been doing the wing dance for other hens again lately so I'll be she got the injury doing that since her dances are pretty crazy, and it's her dance-kicking foot that got injured. This week is the first time I've seen her doing the rooster dance since she was broody a couple years back; she sure is an odd one! Turns out she had an itty bitty bumble with a very sharp bit of some kind of foreign object stuck in the foot pad. There was very little going on in the wound, so I think I caught it early just as inflammation was starting to set in. Unfortunately I lost the sharp thing I pulled out before I could get a good look at it, so I will never know what it was exactly. Anyway, 3.5lb Dimple is too tiny for a gause pad so I put ointment on a regular old band-aid and then wrapped that. No limp or anything - she's still bouncy little Dimple, just with a fancy shoe for now.
View attachment 3858608
View attachment 3858607

Oh - and I'd had this super weird feeling for a while now like Dimple has been shrinking, yet every time I weigh her out of paranoia she's the same 3.5lbs! Now I know why I felt like that: I finally weighed Mr. Monster for the first time in ages and he's nearly 9lbs now! Those two are often on my lap together so that'll be it. I guess that dude hasn't actually stopped growing even though he's 2 years old. My dream of a 10lb roo may come true yet LOL.

Meanwhile, the mighty Goob is healing well and is 7.5lbs already. He's going to be massive if he keeps growing for as long as his dad has.

Poor Dimple! I hope she heals quickly and gets back to rooster dancing her little heart out.

9 pounds!?! Mr Monster is growing into his name!