Mites on chickens/my dogs/and biting me too?

[Michellew044]

Hello there,

I will try to keep this brief and informative in hopes to get advice on my situation.

I’m wondering if my 1 or more of my hens might have mites. For the last 2ish months, our 2 bassets have had a sudden skin irritation, resulting in hair loss, scaly skin and almost constant itching. We have been to vet multiple times and are still trying to treat/manage it. We are stumped as to what caused this, especially to both dogs.

My husband and i did a large landscaping project about a month ago and have ironically been itchy ever since that time period.

As of recently, i was treating for BF and noticed one girls leg scales seemed to be raised. I googled it and came across mites bring a possible cause.

I read that loss of neck feathers could be a sign of mites - i have one naturally raggedy hen who has been losing neck feathers. She’s always a mess so i just gave her a decent look over her and aside from a little dirty butt feathers and her scissor beak, she seemed healthy.

HERE’S 1 QUESTION : I did give the coop a good cleaning. I removed the bedding which was compostable so i added it to my compost pile which is located behind the chickens run. IS IT OK THAT I COMPOSTED THAT STUFF ESP RIGHT BEHIND THE COOP? I didn’t see anything while i was cleaning so i really didn’t think much of it.

ANOTHER QUESTION: i cleared all cracks and crevices with a
Recommended spray, dusted with food grade DE and then redid my coop floor with construction sand.
WILL I NEED TO REMOVE ALL THET TO CLEAN IT AGain?

ANOTHER QUESTION : i line dry a lot of our laundry. Everything is hung in the general area that the chickens often free range. ARE MY CLOTHES/linens safe from mites?

I had a few more things i needed to add but I’m falling asleep. Thank you so much for your help!

 

[nuthatched]

Don't wrap your birds feet.
How have been treating the scaley leg mites?
Have you used anything else besides de?
DE will not work, it's like throwing cotton balls at godzilla.

 

[Michellew044]

Don't wrap your birds feet.
How have been treating the scaley leg mites?
Have you used anything else besides de?
DE will not work, it's like throwing cotton balls at godzilla.

Hi there! The wrap was from treating for BF but it’s off her foot now. I sprayed the cracks and crevices of the coop with Martins pen and poultry and let it dry before doing DE then sand

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi there! The wrap was from treating for BF but it’s off her foot now. I sprayed the cracks and crevices of the coop with Martins pen and poultry and let it dry before doing DE then sand

DE does work as we've used it religiously for 20 years in our parrot cages and monthly in our coop for 8 years. Just use it as a prevention though, not as a cure. Permethrin dust is what most use for infestations as it kills them way faster than the DE will. Your Martin's product I'm not familiar with but perhaps it's the same thing.

Most mites that frequent chickens don't like people, but yet, you could pick up a couple hitchhikers.

Now all of this won't help the SLM (scaley leg mites.) We've had them 3X in eight years. Twice we did vaseline. For that, you go in the coop at night and slather vaseline on their feet and legs. Do that again in about three nights, and again a third time three nights later. The 3rd time they got them, we had triple the birds and these are silkies so I didn't feel like globbing up their feathered feet. We used Ivermectin 5% Pour On for Sheep. We put two drops on the skin of each silkie's neck and repeated that in a week.

Regardless of which way you treat SLM, it takes months sometimes to show improvement. At least you'll notice they aren't getting worse.

 

[TOR]

Chickens mites can bite you and have little red bump or maybe more depending on reaction. They need bird blood to reproduce. I use prymethian spray, I keep chickens in front barn in old cattle birthing stalls, all kinds little spots hard to get all. I spray every 3 weeks or so.
I use DE in where my chickens dust. Powder in nesting boxes.
My chickens probably still have mites, try to keep it under control some.
I had a very high infestation. I really knocked it down.