Rooster with mites

[trizzle]

A friend of ours had a rooster that was fine and dandy..Then one day when she went to let chickens out of the coop, she noticed he had balance issues and would try to fly out of coop and land on his back. She said he seemed weak. Then she said when she would let them back in the coop, he was so weak she had to help him into it. After helping him she noticed mites crawling on her hand and they were all over his under feathers. She separated him from the hens immediatley and the next morning he was dead.
Its winter time and she thought the bug infestation was weird since it was cold out. Then hens were unaffected. What caused all of this. She keeps a clean coop with plenty of fresh water and fresh food daily. We are all new to owning chickens as is she. Any advice?

 

[Sally8]

I know mites can suck a chicken dry. For a bad infestation, I use Sevin dust in a sock and light pat them all over, under the wings anywhere where it's warm. For maintainence I dust with plain old wood ash, using the same method. Provide them with a place to dust themselves. I have conflicting thoughts on the coop. I'm sure the mites are living in the bedding, cracks in the wood. I've spread the Sevin in the bedding and stirred it up (no chickens inside until the dust settles and wear a mask, please! And then I've also completely cleaned out the coop and scrubbed the walls. In our NY winter, I can't do that right now. So, at this time, I'm just trying to keep the mite number down until spring. They are a nasty bug. No easy answers.

 

[Judy]

It's hard to believe that other chickens in the same coop were unaffected. The rooster may have had a worse case than the rest, for any number of reasons. I agree that Sevin is the way to go. You have to replace the bedding and treat the coop as well as the birds, at least twice, 10 days apart. It's good to get both Sevin liquid and dust, the liquid to paint on rough places in the coop, the undersides of the roosts, etc.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/vme-fact/0018.html