HiEverybirdy
Crowing
So many good questions, and good job sneaking pics! I'll answer based on my experience, always with the disclaimer that I'm not an expert – I'm an obsessive chicken tender but only have 1.5 years of experience under my belt – and what works for us may be different for your flock 
- Are the white things on the rooster what you're looking at? Those look different than mites. I'd lean towards lice. Not sure if this is a good article or not, but there are photos that might be helpful. https://citygirlfarming.com/2012/08/22/chicken-lice-arent-nice/
Either way, I do think the treatments are the same with different dosages, meaning you'd be diluting the spray at a different rate. There are good articles on BYC about dosages as well as often some dosing info on the bottle.
- The bugs on your arm aren't mites. I'd say louse for the light one, but again, I don't have direct experience with lice, so take this with a grain of salt. The dark one looks like a biting gnat we get in Tennessee this time of year. Super itchy. I don't believe they're chicken related.
- To my knowledge, the bugs on the floor of your coop are simply creepy crawlies that eat coop junk. We've seen those but not had problems with them. They're kind of a cleaning crew. Northern fowl mites are usually even tinier and darker, and they're often found hiding in the dark under the roost, in the nesting box, or on your chickens.
- Good on you for braving Wild Thang! He may start to love you if you help him feel better ;-)
Dipping was a game-changer for our rooster. I don't think we'd have kicked mites as much without dipping him, but I only did it after exhausting other measures, for the same reasons you're reluctant, which are valid: you don't want him to end up traumatized and flinging pesticide everywhere. Oddly enough, our rooster, who was a freight train of aggression, was the calmest, sweetest bird when dipped. He went into a trance and let me rub the water down to his skin. Then he sunned himself and pranced around for the next few hours like he couldn't be more proud. Unexpected, but he must've felt elated to stop being bitten. He was so big, and no matter how many times I dusted and spritzed him, the mites would hide elsewhere on him, then rebound.
I was glad he was the only bird who needed dipping. I mean, one way chickens dry off is by preening. It's hard to imagine how much poison they ingest after being dusted or spritzed, not to mention after being completely soaked in pesticide, ugh.
- For birds who don't like to be handle, I'd sneak treatments when the birds are on the roost at night because they're easier to access. Some say the chickens will stay asleep while you're dusting/spritzing butts. Mine wake up, but it's still far less tricky than trying to catch the flighty ones during the day. (Of course, if you're dipping, that should be by day unless it's very hot at night. You don't want to chill a chicken.)
- In my experience, it can take a few days for some treatments to work, esp. when the infestation is bad. Many treatments do recommend a second round 10-14 days later to catch subsequent hatch outs.
- The poopy booty on your boy and feather loss on your hen may definitely indicate external parasites.
However, we have one hen who lost feathers on her butt, no mites or lice, and I've read where sometimes a hen just loses butt feathers and won't grow them back until molting because she's using resources to lay. You may want to give higher quality/higher protein feed, particularly during warmer months (when they're eating less) to be sure they're getting all they need. Not only to keep their feathers in good condition but because good nutrition might help their systems fend off parasites.
If you feel like geeking out on poultry nutrition, I just heard this podcast and thought it was great: https://www.breedersacademy.com/ep35-interview-with-jeff-mattocks-about-poultry-nutrition-part-1/
- Our flock has a big, fenced-in/electrified yard. Their dustbath area is a little hill they've terraced into numerous pits. It's just dirt. Nothing added. Interestingly, our rooster had his mite problems when I was separating him 1/3 of each day because of his aggression. Just that much less access to dustbathing seemed to make a big difference.
A lot of people have special recipes for dustbaths, but if you have good dirt on your ground that the other chickens like (maybe not potting soil in case that has fertilizer in it), I'd shovel that ground into a baby pool and give it to him! He'll be so happy to have dirt to fancy himself up in.
Some people add wood ash or DE. Again, I'd never add DE because of the respiratory concerns, and our dirt seems to work wonders on its own. But there are many opinions on dustbaths.
Hope this helps. Maybe someone with lice experience will weigh in, but if I were you, I'd do a bunch of searches on lice to see how people are detecting and dealing with those in case these are that instead of mites.
- Are the white things on the rooster what you're looking at? Those look different than mites. I'd lean towards lice. Not sure if this is a good article or not, but there are photos that might be helpful. https://citygirlfarming.com/2012/08/22/chicken-lice-arent-nice/
Either way, I do think the treatments are the same with different dosages, meaning you'd be diluting the spray at a different rate. There are good articles on BYC about dosages as well as often some dosing info on the bottle.
- The bugs on your arm aren't mites. I'd say louse for the light one, but again, I don't have direct experience with lice, so take this with a grain of salt. The dark one looks like a biting gnat we get in Tennessee this time of year. Super itchy. I don't believe they're chicken related.
- To my knowledge, the bugs on the floor of your coop are simply creepy crawlies that eat coop junk. We've seen those but not had problems with them. They're kind of a cleaning crew. Northern fowl mites are usually even tinier and darker, and they're often found hiding in the dark under the roost, in the nesting box, or on your chickens.
- Good on you for braving Wild Thang! He may start to love you if you help him feel better ;-)
Dipping was a game-changer for our rooster. I don't think we'd have kicked mites as much without dipping him, but I only did it after exhausting other measures, for the same reasons you're reluctant, which are valid: you don't want him to end up traumatized and flinging pesticide everywhere. Oddly enough, our rooster, who was a freight train of aggression, was the calmest, sweetest bird when dipped. He went into a trance and let me rub the water down to his skin. Then he sunned himself and pranced around for the next few hours like he couldn't be more proud. Unexpected, but he must've felt elated to stop being bitten. He was so big, and no matter how many times I dusted and spritzed him, the mites would hide elsewhere on him, then rebound.
I was glad he was the only bird who needed dipping. I mean, one way chickens dry off is by preening. It's hard to imagine how much poison they ingest after being dusted or spritzed, not to mention after being completely soaked in pesticide, ugh.
- For birds who don't like to be handle, I'd sneak treatments when the birds are on the roost at night because they're easier to access. Some say the chickens will stay asleep while you're dusting/spritzing butts. Mine wake up, but it's still far less tricky than trying to catch the flighty ones during the day. (Of course, if you're dipping, that should be by day unless it's very hot at night. You don't want to chill a chicken.)
- In my experience, it can take a few days for some treatments to work, esp. when the infestation is bad. Many treatments do recommend a second round 10-14 days later to catch subsequent hatch outs.
- The poopy booty on your boy and feather loss on your hen may definitely indicate external parasites.
However, we have one hen who lost feathers on her butt, no mites or lice, and I've read where sometimes a hen just loses butt feathers and won't grow them back until molting because she's using resources to lay. You may want to give higher quality/higher protein feed, particularly during warmer months (when they're eating less) to be sure they're getting all they need. Not only to keep their feathers in good condition but because good nutrition might help their systems fend off parasites.
If you feel like geeking out on poultry nutrition, I just heard this podcast and thought it was great: https://www.breedersacademy.com/ep35-interview-with-jeff-mattocks-about-poultry-nutrition-part-1/
- Our flock has a big, fenced-in/electrified yard. Their dustbath area is a little hill they've terraced into numerous pits. It's just dirt. Nothing added. Interestingly, our rooster had his mite problems when I was separating him 1/3 of each day because of his aggression. Just that much less access to dustbathing seemed to make a big difference.
A lot of people have special recipes for dustbaths, but if you have good dirt on your ground that the other chickens like (maybe not potting soil in case that has fertilizer in it), I'd shovel that ground into a baby pool and give it to him! He'll be so happy to have dirt to fancy himself up in.
Some people add wood ash or DE. Again, I'd never add DE because of the respiratory concerns, and our dirt seems to work wonders on its own. But there are many opinions on dustbaths.
Hope this helps. Maybe someone with lice experience will weigh in, but if I were you, I'd do a bunch of searches on lice to see how people are detecting and dealing with those in case these are that instead of mites.
I've had chickens since the summer of 2019, but this is the first time I've had to deal with parasites on the chickens.
They won't stay asleep at all. I agree, that would be a great time to treat them.
but some people seem to dig it.
I'm afraid if I wait too much longer, it will be hard to introduce them. One hen is blind, and I wanted the chicks to get used to her now, because all my other chickens bull her so she has no friend. She does get to visit other chickens through chicken wire but that's it. Her last friend, Ellie, died when the buffalo gnats came through in April, and her friend before that (that she was raised with and was also blind) died last November from old age (I assume). I raised these chicks partially just to give her a flock to interact with.
