Mites, Lice

[cochinbantam-lover]

She pecked a little bit of yogurt and scratch feed last night and she is almost a year now.

 

[Kittymomma]

Try giving her some scrambled eggs--High in protien and they'll usually eat them even when they ignore regular food.

 

[cochinbantam-lover]

OK I'll make her some!! Thanks so much!

 

[Eggsactly]

I have just recently learned about mites. My two big Black Australorps went broody together in the same nest box. They didn't come out frequently enough to take dust baths and got mites.....lots of mites. This is a lengthy post with all the steps I took but it worked well for me. The following links were very helpful for me.

WHAT I DID:

1) Get an very early start. You want everyone and everything to have plenty of time to dry before roosting.

2) Remove all bedding and BURN IT immediately or your chickens will find it and go scratching through it.

3) Remove everything from the coop you possibly can.

I know some folks have permanently attached nest boxes. Luckily mine are plastic bins I can easily remove and wash. I carried them outside with the brooding hens in them. They seemed to like the fresh air and sunshine and they never left the nests.

4) Hose down the entire coop, floor to ceiling, with high powered nozzle. Pressure washer would work too. Pay special attention to areas where nest boxes located and roosts.

5) Sweep out all the standing water you can and keep all windows and doors open to facilitate air drying of coop.

6) Sprayed my entire coop, floor to ceiling, with Orange Guard (google to find where to get it near you). I purchased mine at local ACE Hardware. Below are some helpful links about Orange Guard. I have not seen anything that says if it is safe to spray directly onto animals or not so I didn't.

http://www.orangeguard.com/FAQ.html
http://www.orangeguard.com/news.html

7) Take an empty nest boxes. Thoroughly wash with mild chlorox water, rinse well, dry then spray with Orange Guard. Fill with fresh bedding and sprinkle with DE or wood ash (wear mask when handling DE) Place in clean dry coop.

8) Multi-dip baths. Start with infested broody hens. I set bathing stations up just before I went to bath them so the water would be warm. Here's how I did it. Adjust to what you have on hand. This worked well for me as I have no access to warm water outdoors I heated water on my stove in my large kettle and carried it out to the tubs. Add cold hose water to reach desired temp.
Take 4 empty rubbermaid storage tubs (anything you have deep enough to thoroughly dip your hens in)

1st tub: Epsom salt and warm water bath

2nd tub:grated natural Kirks Castile Soap into bottom. Fill with water a little warmer than you want to end up with as it will
cool some before you get your chickens in it. Swish the soap with your hands to get it dissolved and bubbly. COVER
tub to retain as much warmth as possible.

3rd tub: Warm water vinegar rinse

4th tub: Warm water rinse with eucalyptus essential oil and lavendar essential oil, both natural insect repellents. You want
this to be your final rinse so the oils will stay on your birds.

My flock did not like the baths. Had to hold them down in tub with one hand while using the other hand to thoroughly wash feathers. Make sure you get them completely wet down to the skin it takes a while to get it there and some extensive feather swishing. Clean vent area very well as bugs like this area. Make sure to get the head and neck well too.

Then let them go to dry and preen and sulk before they go back to the nest. It takes them awhile to dry and they didn't go back to theirs eggs until they were completely dry. I was worried about the eggs getting too chilled but it was either chance losing the chicks to chilled eggs or losing them to mites when they hatched as well as having my whole flock sickened.

9) Once I got the broodies taken care of, I removed the eggs from the infested boxes, removed any mites I found on the eggs and placed them in the clean and prepped nest boxes.

10) Clean remaining nest boxes as described in step 7 above.

11) Put clean bedding on coop floor once it is well dried and sprinkle with DE or wood ash.

12) When everyone is dry and coming in for the night we picked each one up individually and gave a thorough dusting with DE or wood ash (be sure to wear a mask) as demonstrated in the 2nd video link above.

Be sure to empty and thoroughly wash out your bathing tubs with chlorox water as the mites will crawl out onto the tubs to avoid drowning.

Be sure to shower and wash hair and immediately wash the clothes you were wearing after handling infested birds. The mites won't stay on humans but they will crawl on you for a while and you don't want to go tracking them through your house.

FOLLOW-UP:

I made a spray bottle with water containing eucalyptus and lavender essential oils and spray my chickens every few days. I spray the coop with orange guard every week or two paying special attention to boxes and roosts. Sprinkle DE or wood ash occasionally in their favorite dusting places out doors especially after rains once it has dried out. Dust the broody hens with DE or wood ash every few days while their on nest.

LESSONS LEARNED:

1) Pay special attention to broody hens. Check broody hens OFTEN and dust them often with DE since they are not doing it for themselves. It is surprisingly easy if you follow the video in the second link above. My flock even seemed to like it once they figured out what I was doing. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

2) Once you discover the bugs treat the entire flock.

3) Bath your birds early in the day so they can have plenty of time in the sun to dry. If not sunny or if it chilly you can blow them dry on LOW setting

4) If broody hens are left untreated the mites can kill the little chicks in short order.

5) THOROUGHLY clean out the coop paying special attention the the nest boxes and the roosts.

6) An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Dust those broody hens frequently!