Proactive health care measures for new chicks?

[aart]

Curious as to which mites live ON the bird and which mites(Northern Red Mites?) live in the coop but feed on the birds at night?


Are you sure they're mites and not lice?
What do you mean by 'crusty'..I wonder if you're seeing clumps of white lice egg clusters at the base of feathers?
The tail feather tips are probably not a big deal as they will molt out.


pathwandering......whether you keep the birds or not, you (or someone) will still probably need to 'debug' the coop you've kept them in and burn the bedding....hard decisions, best of luck to you.

 

[centrarchid]

I only have a couple of pictures from when they first arrived. In one of them you can see how their tail feathers were in poor shape. Underneath they had dirty feathers and I thought that was just plain being dirty, but it hasn't changed and they have remained dirty and crusty, which is why I kept looking for mites. Live and learn I guess.

Your quarantine as shown has the potential to promote increased external parasite burden (mites lice) as it confining location with lots of dry organic material birds are always in contact with. Since you have reasonable health concerns (I have little ones as well), then ask another party to handle pesticides and minimize your exposure. Give directions during mixing and application from a safe distance. Find a a non-lactating / gestating male to provide such service and have him use proper technique. Duration of application short and if bedding replaced following treatment you can quickly get in and resume close contact with birds. Providing young birds access to real dusty dirt they can dust bath in but otherwise avoid can help control many external parasites but that will not agree with your quarantine setup. Since multiple treatments for multiple health issues being considered, I suggest the treatments be staggered to avoid complications associated combined all at once approach (over-reacting part). Such treatments are stressful alone and are not intended to be done at same time. I would treat the cocci first as that can be life threatening in the shorter-term.

 

[pathwandering]

Unfortunately I don't have anyone who will treat them for me. The men in my life have made it very clear they will not have anything to do with the chickens (was part of the deal beforehand), and my sister who would do it is 7 months pregnant.

I would be ok with doing the pour on Ivermectin, though if it would be effective. I have actually set a box with wood ash in the pen for them to dust bathe in, but they didn't do it. I was going to change it to sand today to see if they would go for that. I also took out the hay and sprayed poultry protector, (also sprayed the birds but I'm sure I couldn't spray they well enough since it was chilly and I didn't want them to get too cold). Could I bathe them in a poultry protector solution?

As for what I'm seeing, I'm seeing dark debris and dark bugs. From what I've read I think they are Northern Fowl mites. I haven't seen any on the light colored roost they use at night (not shown in the pics.)

This is the best I can do for quarantine, I did build them a chicken tractor to take them out during the day, but now I don't really want to use it and then infect the tractor and not be able to use it in the future as it's made of pine. (I was going to start using it this weekend.)

So that's my situation, and why I'm really worried about infecting my other fully feathered, fluffy birds who would be more difficult to treat. If people think my birds are safe - coop is 100 feet away, they free range but don't go closer than 20 feet to where the quarantine coop is. I'm willing to give the Ivermectin a try - how long after the Corid can I use it? Not all their poops have blood, but it's enough consistently that I think it's probably something.

 

[pathwandering]

So I dusted them with De tonight and I was pretty happy to see what I think is a big improvement. I couldn't find any bugs and the feathers seemed cleaner. Perhaps the poultry protector and de in the bedding are working? I had a friend take pics and unfortunately you cant see much at all but their vents do look much cleaner. Unless there's something Im missing which is completely possible. I have found another home (i was honest about why i didnt want to keep them) but now Im second guessing giving them up. Im just really attached to my existing birds and dont want to hurt them.

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[pathwandering]

I just wanted to come back and thank everyone who gave me advice on this thread. The birds are now doing fine, although they are still small and I guess might always be. They are integrating into my existing flock now and my older birds seem fine too.