PLEASE help! - Mites, ticks? What!?

[Chicken Frenzie]

Hi, my beloved Daisy ( my favorite chicken) isn't looking to well. She's alert, eating, laying eggs, and all of that. But I checked her neck and it's all pinfeathers! I thought it was normal, but today I was looking at it and I saw a little bug. I have no idea what it is, but I'll describe it
(On the feather tips)
It looked kind of grum like, it was VERY small, but if you looked, you could see it,
it looked yellowish, I couldn't tell since I looked so fast and ran inside..
I havn't seen this before. what shouldI do? I have 13 other chickens and don't want them to be infected if this is a tick/mite. It might just be a random bug, but I've never seen it before. Please help.

 

[wowmanacat]

I would dust with Sevins dust or make up a dirt bath with DE in it for them to dust themselves in I am going to be making a sand and DE box for them as soon as I can. DE is very safe and natural, it is so safe that you can eat it.

 

[Chicken Frenzie]

What does DE stand for?
Well, my mom and I just looked again. The mysterious bug was gone. She might just be molting but a bug cought a ride ;3,

 

[Saltysteele]

if the chicken is that bad, you shouldn't fool around with DE, not aggressive enough. if you have a bug here or there or would like to help prevent an infestation, you could give a pan to bathe with DE.

dust with Sevin around the neck, middle of the back, under the "arm pits," around the vent. this is recommended by all the ag extensions i've seen recommendations from. wait 10 days and do it again. also, after dusting the first time, clean the coop and spray or dust with sevin (let dry before letting back in if you spray)

the sevin will kill them quickly, and by doing it again in 10 days, you kill the offspring that are still in the egg stage the first time you did it, and before they are able to lay eggs

 

[BantamoftheOpera]

After using Sevin dust is it safe to eat the eggs. If not, how long should you wait?

 

[ChicKat]

Quote:
DE is for Diatomaceous Earth ( I always spell it wrong) In the UK they call it Diatom
Here's wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth

 

[mkhenderson17]

The best thing to do is go to your feed store or tractor supply and get any LABELED treatment for lice and mites. At tractor supply you can pick up a container for under $10. When you have an infestation it is best to use items labeled for use in chickens. Follow the directions exactally though. you will need to repeat in like 7 to 14 days. strip ALL bedding out and add the powder to the bedding and IN the nest boxes.

Things like DE are ok for prevention in nest boxes and bedding but to the treatment in animals is best to use a labeled product. Some people use one drop of frontline plus but it is debated weather it is safe to eat the eggs so just go with a powder.

also FYI there is good news you can not get chicken lice

. Chicken lice only live on chickens. they may jump on you and bite once or twice but they dont like humans. Lice are very host specific meaning they only like one specieas of animals.

Good Luck!!!

 

[toyota]

Wiping out the mites...almost naturally!

2 weeks ago we found thousands of common red roost mites flourishing in our coop ....(our 5 hens laying only 1 egg per day total over 5 days)..the hens didnt look or act too badly but they certainly let us newbie urban farmers of 1 .5 years know that there was a big problem in their house! we were shocked at the number of mites and how quickly they reproduced..a 1 week cycle from egg to maturity and the potential for each female mite to lay 120,000 eggs..YIKES ..we had to act swiftly and itch/scratch along the way. With this type of mite , they are on the hen only at night for a few hours to feed on a blood meal then crawl off the hen to hide/lay in the cracks/crevises and bedding during the day.

We are happy to report that we have had good success (avoiding Sevin dusting ) using a combination approach of full coop scrub down,using soap and hot h2o, DE to dust the girls and their coop,nesting boxes /grounds and a brushing on of motor or mineral oil to any coop wood surfaces/roosting polls. Along with those 3 interventions we have also discovered the ultimate "insecticide"; a painters heat gun...we used it to go over all of the wood in the coop which totally wiped out/vaporizes all of the mites on surfaces and in crevices, instantly. The heat gun(used to aid stripping old paint) looks like a hand held hair dryer (costs about $30.00 in hardware store )and has 2 settings 300 and 500 degrees..not much chance of mite survival after one pass...just dont try it on the birds ..or yourself for that matter!!!..and pay attention to not overheat one spot or you will see smoke ..and where there is smoke there might be fire!
I keep the gun readily available to daily kill off any new mites that have hatched/.. but those numbers are now less that 50 crawlers per day and dropping rapidly!!
i thought i would share the success thus far of our trials . We are trying to avoid using any insecticides for all the usual environmental reasons..studies do show that Sevin is toxic to bees and earthworms so we wish to avoid that route if we can..and find management alternatives that are successful /enviro" life-giving"..that is if your not under "the gun!"
So far, happy hens laying 5 eggs most days and happy urban family farmers.
we hope that this is helpful to all (except the darn mites!)

 

[chicktwins]

I would think Frontline would be fine when it comes to eating eggs laid by chickens that it has been applied to. It works by staying on the skin and using the oil secreted by the hair follicle to spread over the body from the original spot of application. It is not absorbed systemically therefore wouldn't be in the egg you are consuming. Now, that being said, if for some reason the Frontline were to get onto the egg while being laid then maybe there is a chance that it could soak through the shell? I have read that the shells contain a membrane that protects the inside of the egg from bacteria, etc but if the egg is washed and the membrane is removed it would then allow for things to penetrate through the shell to inside of the egg. Then I would think you would have washed the Frontline off at that point. I don't know but this sure does have my poor brain working overtime. Hahaha

I have been a SAHM for the last 7 years and feel like my brain has turned to mush. Getting into a new hobby (chickens) is really starting to benefit me more than I thought it would, on a whole different level!!

This is good......really, really GOOD!

 

[Chicken Frenzie]

Thanks everyone!!! My mom and I just went out to Daisy, we couldn't find that bug. I think he was justcatching a ride, because I wasplaying with my bunyn and it was crawling up my leg.... GROSS! I smushed it =/. But maybe there are more, we're going to clean out the WHOLE coop today and all the cages of the goats and bunnies. Does anyone know if that sounded like a mite?