Lice or mites,

[franny1021]

My little flock of 6 is having problems with some type of insect. Some feathers on their back are gone and I see pink at end of feathers left.
Also noticed that breast feathers are disturbed by some type of insect. I did powder them with Seven once and put seven on their roost stick. Any help with type of treatment would be much appreciated.
Del

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Quote:
The sevin should have worked for lice OR mites, but you would have also needed to retreat in order to get the hatching eggs, else the cycle just starts again.

Please see this link:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/vme-fact/0018.html

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Are you sure it is not just that they are begining to molt? If you have males, they could be over breeding their favourites.

edited for one whopping typo

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Quote:
Sonoran is right!! Those are real possibilities. Yay Sonoran!

 

[theFox]

Also if your birds are spending a lot of their time indoors they will get bored and self pick, or pluck the feathers from the other birds.

 

[edgroger]

Quote:

Woah! first time i heard chickens really plucking their feathers out of boredom. If that's the case should we continually entertain our chickens so as not get some lost feathers

 

[theFox]

Quote:

Woah! first time i heard chickens really plucking their feathers out of boredom. If that's the case should we continually entertain our chickens so as not get some lost feathers

Some folks that have birds that spend the majority of their time inside during the winter do exactly that, they use frozen cabbages etc to provide their birds with distractions.

It gets quite boring for them if they are cooped up for long stretches of time and if you don't have sufficient room a lot more than a little feather loss can happen.

 

[chickenpickens]

Thank you Chickensaresweet for the link. I was so proud that we hadn't had lice or mites...until tonight.

I think we have lice and your link really helped to get this all figured out.

 

[ivan3]

Draftiemama recently posted up a couple of excellent shots of the `licentious' vermin in the Turkey forum (nice index pics): https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=457471&p=1

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Quote:
You are welcome! Fortunately they are curable! There is a thread out there on removing nits, too, if desired.