Help - chicken mites

[chickmill]

My kids came in from the chickens today covered in these little redish brown fast crawling bugs. They were bigger than lice but I don't know what they are? Does anyone have experience with these parasites that I assume are mites and how do I get rid of them? From the number on my kids I am also assuming my poors chickens are completely infested.

 

[Chicken Woman]

On the top of page click on SEARCH then type in mites. There are hundreds of posts.

 

[newchickenfarmer]

yes it sounds like mites. and these are bad for ur chickens. if left untreated can cause death. same as chicken lice. but mites r more of a reddish, if you leave your coop dark and go in with a flash light you'll see little grayish ones run from the light thats their babies(mites). best treatment is a good dip in a malithion dip, you can buy it at like a co op, rural king, vets can't help, they just dont mess with chickens. well were I'm from. that dip has to be diluted it tells u how or if the people your gettin it from c if they have any ideas, my husband & I did it but I can't remember how he mixed it. also u can use a dust called insecticide dust and dust them good that takes more than once but I believe the can says. also clean out their coop all of it, it sucks! but all starw gone and the burned, scrape all poo off everywhere and if you look at their poo like thats on the bottom of their roost or in corners of the coop it looks like a white dust. thats eggs. but a good spray down of bleach and water to everything. then as another good thing to do is when all is dry sprinkle that dust on the floor rub on their roost and put in their nest and mix it into the straw. oh dont dip your birds heads under the dip or water they drown. if its cold where u r the dip needs to be done in a heated place to dry dont take em long. oh u hold em lightly under their beek cheeck area and by their feet and dip em down to their necks just a couple seconds or so lift em up let it run off a sec and sit em down some might act funny just help em up its. I'd their heavy. well i dont know if I forgot anything, but ur welcome to write with anything. we've pulled threw sick even dying chickens cos of fleas & mites. newchickenfarmer

 

[Southernbelle]

I've had good results from Sevin5 powder to dust the birds with. You'll also need to clean and spray the coop.

Good luck!

 

[mypicklebird]

Red mites live off the bird, in the cracks and cranies in the coop- they come out mostly at night- and you can see them swarming on the perches and birds at night- go out with a flashlight. They are smaller than the standard lice you see around the vent. To get these guys, you have to clean the coop and dust the coop and all the cracks with poultry dust or something similar that kills insects.

The standard chicken lice you see around their vent are grayish to pinkish (if they just ate), and the adults can be surprisingly large. They live ON the bird- so treat the birds with pyrethrin (poultry dust) or carbaryl (sevin dust).

There are also all sorts of grain mites ect that might walk on a person, but probably not bite them.

I would ask the kids if they noticed the bugs, and where they came from- if they had chickens on their laps and it was daytime- you can probably find the source by inspecting the birds. If it was dusk and they were in the coop, you may have seen red mites- they will bite people, and are harder to get rid off....