Northern Fowl Mites treatment

[sbonkfarrell]

I'm pretty sure 3 of my 6 hens have northern fowl mites. 3 of them have dirty butt feathers and 3 of them don't — I checked 1 with dirty feathers yesterday and saw little red bites crawling around her vent and had what looked like dust in the bottoms of her feathers (which I've come to find out are mite eggs). I checked 1 with clean feathers and she was fine. Sooooo I'm guessing only half our flock has mites though I know we need to treat all of them. The dilemma is we'd like to give them a permethrin bath but we have to do it outside. But my husband and I are concerned about our girls taking a bath and then not being able to fully dry off in this winter cold (it's 18 degrees here today). Can anyone give suggestions on what to do? Should we towel them off like little dogs afterwards? HAHA. I'm very open to suggestions and thankful for any advice!

 

[alinas2010]

Hello, sorry to hear about your chickens. Mites seem to be a common issue right now.

I agree with you, I wouldn’t do a dip treatment with the weather being so cold right now unless you could blow dry your chickens and keep them inside until they dry fully. However keeping them inside with mites risks the mites invading your house, so I would opt not to do a dip treatment.

Instead, you can do a permethrin powder treatment. Most farm stores should have a poultry dust like these

What I do is pour some into a sock and use it like a powder poof to dust my chickens. Wear gloves and a mask when doing this. I agree that you will need to treat all of them. Work the powder down to the skin and focus heavily on the vent area, under the wings and the back of the neck. Repeat the same treatment in 5-7 days to catch any newly hatched mites. Northern fowl mites hatch every 5-7 days, so multiple treatments may be in order. I keep repeating until I don’t see any mites. It’s easier to do this at night when they’re on roost.

You will need to replace all the bedding, nesting material and litter in the coop (I also rake up litter in the run and toss it). Then with a permethrin spray, you’ll need to spray the coop down well, focusing on the cracks and crevices. Burn or toss the old bedding, do not compost or reuse it. Replace with new, fresh bedding after treating the coop.

Good luck!