I have a 1 y/o silkie hen who has really been having a rough go the past few days. I was handling her the other day, looking for mites and I couldn’t find any physically on her but when I got inside I found 3 crawling on my arm so I figured she (as well as the rest of my flock) must be absolutely infested. She hatched one chick about 5 weeks ago and lost a lot of weight during her brood but she’s barely put any back on. Yesterday I tried to feed her scrambled eggs with garlic but she wouldn’t eat. Today I syringe fed her 1 and a half raw egg yolks which she gobbled down as well as some apple sauce. I also saw her have 6/7 sips of water which I put electrolytes in. This afternoon she perked up a bit, was talking to her chick more than before and was walking (surely but slowly) but I checked about 2 hours later and she was back to square one, crunched down in the corner of the run, puffed up and eyes closed. We’re going to start treating with permethrin spray (we’re in Canada so we’ll probably have to use bronco spray, but we’ll see what’s at the feed store) but we’ve been trying to use DE to at least curb some of the mite population. I was thinking of also bathing her tomorrow in some dawn dish soap to kill some of them aswell and then blow dry her on low with a diffuser. Please tell us what else we should do with the poor hen as well as what’s the best way to kill the infestation! Has anyone else had any chickens like this? How did they recover?
We had 3 die after red mite infestation.
If your infestation is ongoing, take her out with her chick (if that can be done safely) and keep them in a non-infested area.
With mites, you have to worry about blood volume loss and not just the resulting anemia. They can kill an apparently healthy chicken over night in a bad infestation.
To know how bad it is, go out around 10-midnight and look under your roost poles. Be prepared to be horrified.
I used pyganic specialty on the birds and coop and it was a quick knock down that worked perfectly. Its the organic form of permethrin I believe. You can get it online if you can find it shipped to Canada. Use what you have if you have something now. DE as well can work, but you need it thick. No duster or small application in the litter, you need to cake it on as thick as mortar for bricks and rub it generously into every single crack in your coop. nest box and roost poles. I'm talking super thick, so that when the mites try to crawl through it, they dry up and can't even make it through. I use about a 10lb bag of DE in an 8x8 coop on all cracks, walls, roosts, boxes and bedding.
Your hen may have other issues as well, making the mite issue critical. There are specialty treatments vets can administer to improve oxygen level etc in the blood if they are experienced and advanced, but you will need to ask them if they have that experience if you go that route. Remember that doing too many tests right now on her can also cause mortality if she lost too much blood. So they should take the minimum needed to treat the possible oxygen depletion and anemia.
I have seen some great avian and farm vets, and others that are far less advanced.
The best thing you can do right now is stop the blood loss from the mites.
The few that are on the bird right now are disconcerting, but the real threat are the ones hiding in the walls of the coop. They will come out of the woodwork of your coop where you least expect it and it may be in the millions. There are also likely millions in the bedding, even if it looks clean. Look closely.
Safer brand neem makes a ready to use product you can also spray on the birds, but it doesn't seem to work as fast as pyganic specialty.
Dawn dish soap will remove all the natural oils in her feathers and make it harder to thermoregulate right now. Best to use a spray or powder on her.
Good luck, keep us posted!
from under the roost and saw a ton of mites crawling underneath…
