I think my silkies have mites?

cthrash1

Songster
11 Years
Apr 15, 2008
3,046
8
221
Somerset, KY
I have 5 silkies now in my flock of chickens and after being gone for two weeks(got back last week) I am just now getting around to checking my chickens for health issues. Well, I noticed one of my blue silkies didn't have as much poof around her face as she did before I left...Thought it was just teenage gangliness. I picked her up and around her neck the base of the feathers looks like they have dry skin bunched up at the base by the skin. The others had it too except my oldest silkie. It comes off fairly easy but is making the feathers look a little thin in that area. There is none in the poof area just below it around the top half of the neck. There isn't any on any other part of the body either. Would rubbing Vetrx around the neck help get rid of this?
 
Sounds like mites/ lice laid their eggs at base of her feathers...
I would dust them really well and pull off the affected feathers... Hurts them a little when you pluck them out but worth it not to have bugs hatch out and multiply.....
 
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I don't know if I can put them through that it sounds so painful. Do you think a Nit comb or baby shampoo/dogs flea n tick shampoo would loosen and remove them? All I have to work with right now is sevin dust and I'm afraid to get it that close to the eyes will it hurt them? I won't have anything else until Jenski brings me some DE this weekend. We can't find any around here.
 
We went through the mites on the birds and the Sevin dust works quicker on them than the DE.

We just dusted under their wings, their vents and their underside from their legs to their necks. We put the dust in cut off pantyhose and just "poofed" them, as we call it. We dusted them again 7 days later and have not had any problems since. Now, if we could just get rid of the roost mites, that's a whole other nightmare.

Good luck!!
 
Our TSC has a Sevin liquid spray that I use on the roosts when I clean the coops...I don't know if it works to keep away pests but I spray roosts, corners, and floor cracks anyway and then sprinkle the powder on the floor and inside bottoms of nestboxes before I drop in the pine shavings. I'm thinking my problem was from the coops and pens not being cleaned in over a month because I had to go out of town suddenly for a couple weeks and friends and family had taken care of the basic needs only of the flock.
 

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