- Thread starter
- #51
Lillith37
Specially interested in chickens
Just to close off the mystery of this thread…
So the museum was able to confirm the mites in my backyard as Ornithonyssus genus, but didn’t have the skill to identify down to species. Which means my vet misidentified them from my picture and they didn’t come from the infestation that prompted this thread, which was very obviously Dermanyssus gallinae the devil himself (red mite).
So the mites in my yard are either Ornithonyssus bursa the tropical fowl mite or Ornithonyssus bacoti the tropical rat mite. Rat mites have been confirmed in my city but not bird mites, but that doesn’t mean they are not here. The only other species as far as I understand it would be Ornithonyssus sylviarum the northern fowl mite, but I have excluded that possibility as the mites are living in the environment and not on the chickens. I submitted a collection of feathers to the museum as well and they reported no evidence of mites on the feathers.
It’s been over a month since this all began and I have had no issue with mites on my chickens or chicks, in the coop, on my dog, on me or in the house. The population died off recently with hotter, drier weather although I do unearth the odd cluster of them from time to time when in the garden and they are still in my compost. So I will continue my practices of monitoring and prevention and that’s about it.
So the museum was able to confirm the mites in my backyard as Ornithonyssus genus, but didn’t have the skill to identify down to species. Which means my vet misidentified them from my picture and they didn’t come from the infestation that prompted this thread, which was very obviously Dermanyssus gallinae the devil himself (red mite).
So the mites in my yard are either Ornithonyssus bursa the tropical fowl mite or Ornithonyssus bacoti the tropical rat mite. Rat mites have been confirmed in my city but not bird mites, but that doesn’t mean they are not here. The only other species as far as I understand it would be Ornithonyssus sylviarum the northern fowl mite, but I have excluded that possibility as the mites are living in the environment and not on the chickens. I submitted a collection of feathers to the museum as well and they reported no evidence of mites on the feathers.
It’s been over a month since this all began and I have had no issue with mites on my chickens or chicks, in the coop, on my dog, on me or in the house. The population died off recently with hotter, drier weather although I do unearth the odd cluster of them from time to time when in the garden and they are still in my compost. So I will continue my practices of monitoring and prevention and that’s about it.
