mites

[cissy33]

hey my chicken has mite i have use the powder stuff and dusk all the others. then i powder wash the chick house and rake it all.. well two day later they were all gone but one still has them .. i powder her again and they all over the hen boxes again .. i want it to be mite free .. but i seem to lose with these mite .. is there anything else i can do to help my poor hen she is laying on eggs and they are going to hatch soon but i dont want the babbies to have them .. please help... she is the only one who stills have them .. oh i cant find 7 dust....

 

[asher]

If you cannot find Sevin dust, what are you dusting them with? You should be able to find it at any hardware or gardening store. Actually, this time of year, you should be able to find it just about anywhere.

Broody hens are very susceptible to mites, unfortunately. It is important to get it treated ASAP as broodies are weak enough as it is. If the mites are eating her up, too in addition to barely eating and setting on eggs, it's a very bad thing.

 

[Junkybird]

Sorry to hijack this thread.

I was just getting ready to post a question about possible mites and saw this one. Several of my hens have lost feathers, mostly around their rears. Two (including a rooster) have only a couple of tails feathers, the rest are all gone. The exposed skin is starting to turn bright red, if it's on the top of the bird. And just today I notice that a few of them are starting to lose some feathers on their heads/necks.

Does this sound like mites, or something else? My local feed store told me to make a paste out of sulfur and water and "paint" it on the roosts and sprinkle some of the dust into the nest boxes. This just doesn't seem to be working.

Should I go ahead and go with the Seven Dust? I was trying to do things a little more natural.

Thanks--

 

[theFox]

Quote:
How old are your birds and a picture would help?

You should be able to see the mites, do you?

 

[Junkybird]

the Fox: I've never seen any mites, though I don't usually get that close to my chickens. I will go out tonight and see if I can.

All my chickens were born last year in March/April. Here are some pics. I think. I'm gonna try this. It's my first time uploading . . .

This is an EE hen that has it the worst.

This is my EE roster. You can see the bright red calloused areas.

This one is slightly out of focus, but you can see the general idea. It's a RIR hen. A few others have this same thing around their vents and under the wings.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Junkybird - i'm not sure your problem is mites. Mites don't cause the chickens to lose feathers. You may have feather-picking going on there. It's sometimes hard to see mites, especially if they are the roost mites (Northern Fowl mites). Because they will live in crevices of the wood, like nest boxes, roosts, in cracks and crevices, and can survive a very long time off a chicken. i usually discover them by sticking my hand in a nest box to pull out and egg and come out itching, with teeny black bugs crawling on me. Also, you can see them easier on white birds, when they crawl to the surface.

What i have done to treat is to pull everything out of the coop. Wipe it down then spray everything (ceiling, roosts, crevices, etc) with Poultry Protector. It's an all natural spray. Then sprinkle Poultry Dust on the floor, then cover with your bedding. For the nest boxes, i ended up painting most of them with a no VOC enamel paint, so there wouldn't be anywhere for the mites to live. Then i put poultry dust on the bottom and cover with bedding. You want to take each bird and dust their bum, under their wings, everywhere you can reach - avoiding the eyes and head.

i have also used Adams flea spray on nest boxes (you want to let them air out good before using again, as it's pretty stinky stuff. i've also read of folks taking the poultry dust and adding some water to make a paste, then painting the roosts and inside of the coops. Mites are very hard to eradicate. Wild birds are almost always carriers of mites, so some protection over your run is a good idea.

 

[theFox]

You are also at that point in time where your birds are likely going through a mini-moult.

I wouldn't think that roo would put up with much in the way of feather picking. But it could be. My birds are about the same as yours are and their laying has slowed down and there are new feather quills starting to show.

How much space is there in your coop and how many birds?

They really need to spend most of their time outside if there isn't a lot of room inside for each bird. They need more room than some folks think.

That 4 square foot per bird is only if the birds have almost unrestricted access to a sizable outside pen otherwise it goes up to 10 square feet per heavy breed bird and 7.5 square feet per light breed bird and 5 square feet per bantam bird when they are confined for long periods of time.

 

[brandyb]

My father in law owns a feed store and just thought I would let you know that Sevin Dust has been discontinued! We still have a few cases left, where we ordered ALOT when we found out they were discontinuing it. Sorry, I wish I could give better news. But when something like Sevin Dust works really well, they always end up discontinuing it.

 

[KOTurkeyRanch]

Quote:
Why is that?

 

[brandyb]

Quote:
Why is that?

I'm sorry I didn't mean that literally. I've just noticed that that is usually how it goes. You find something that works great and the next thing you know they don't make it anymore.