Heavy Mite Infestation

[Chickinie]

I'd say the mice are carrying the mites around more than the wild birds ( if they are the tiny tiny gross mites). Wild birds keep themselves pretty vermin free unless they are sick and when they are sick they get more vermin, visa versa.

I've found my chooks like ash dust baths. Ash is super fine and the mites hate it. The wild Babbler birds we have bath in the ash from the bon fire too.

 

[cmom]

I used pet shampoo and it did help but didn't eliminate all of the mites on the birds.

 

[cmom]

Every over-the-counter (OTC) treatment of head lice contains either pyrethrins (Rid or Triple X) or permethrin (Nix). Both are effective treatment. Both only kill live pests, not eggs.

 

[cmom]

I haven't seen any rats or mice in my coops since I renovated a coop that was infested with rats. I have bait stations in my barn which is behind my coops. For quite awhile now the baits have been untouched. The bait boxes have little windows in them so I can check the baits. I had some wild birds trying to make nests in nest boxes in a couple of coops so I'm pretty sure that is where my mites came from.

 

[cmom]

I recently put one of my game cameras in a coop and saw no activity.

 

[Folly's place]

Mammals, including rodents and us, can carry bird mites and lice around but aren't hosts. Wild birds are normal hosts for bird parasites, and that's where our chickens acquire them, directly, or indirectly. Unless your flock is inside 24/7, with no exposure to the outdoors, and no wild birds able to enter their space, infestations will occur sometimes. Maybe often, maybe after years of no problems.
Mary

 

[termeerchick]

So would you guys recommend me trying to get rid of the mice? Or since the coop is right on the tree line of the railroad tracks and acres of empty fields would it be pointless? The mice holes are right under the feeder and they eat anything that falls on the ground. There are probably hundreds of them. I can set up bait stations but do any of you worry about one of your chickens eating a mice that has eaten the poison? Any Advice would be totally awesome!!

 

[Folly's place]

Hundreds of mice are definitely a problem! Most sick rodents will return to their burrows and die there, and will be unavailable to be eaten by other critters. That's not 100%, so you need to be vigilant and remove any you do find to the garbage.
Have the bait stations protected from any other animals, and use the bait on posts that can't be moved around.
Again, having a 'barn cat' would be helpful too.
Mary

 

[Chickinie]

So would you guys recommend me trying to get rid of the mice? Or since the coop is right on the tree line of the railroad tracks and acres of empty fields would it be pointless? The mice holes are right under the feeder and they eat anything that falls on the ground. There are probably hundreds of them. I can set up bait stations but do any of you worry about one of your chickens eating a mice that has eaten the poison? Any Advice would be totally awesome!!

I had mice in my aviary that were making it impossible to eliminate the mite, no where near hundreds though. It stunk! They had and were carrying them around from around the chooks. They made the mother birds abandon their babies because of how they would crawl all over them. One day there would be no lice in the nest, then they would be covered in them. Gross. I've found that the mites only explode in numbers in chook nests when they are clucky, and unfortunately little bird nests (finches).

I had the same dillemma with the toxic poison in the mouse poo an the doves possibly eating it. I just gave them a block of poison, but each week so the doves had less chance of filling up on possibly poison poo. I did it until the blocks weren't chewed on.

As for if their dead bodies are poisonous... The owls we have around here MUST pick the dying mice. And I've seen a (resident) kookaburra eat a poisoned one and it was fine, and still is... but I always have suspected that they have traces of poison. I think I heard that it breaks down, though. I'm not sure...

 

[aart]

I think I heard that it breaks down, though. I'm not sure...

Depends on which poison you use.