many thanks for that link @L-plate chicken mum ; I hadn't seen it, and I will settle down to read it carefully tomorrow.
Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.
- Thread starter Shadrach
- Start date
Yes; she can put weight on the left leg but clearly minimises it, and rests a lot more than her siblings, and while they are running this way and that chasing insects flying above the grass, she is focussed on what's in it close to her. Sometimes I've seen her take time out and just sit somewhere comfortable while they go on another foraging expedition, but they'll all be back together again an hour or three later. No she doesn't get picked on, thankfully. But she would definitely be easiest for a predator to catch; slower than anyone else in the flock.
My concern is for when the males start trying to mate her. If she can't bear her own weight, bearing theirs too would be worse.
Ex Batts good evening one and all!
Tea is ready.
Temperature is in the 70s mostly cloudy.
Have a great day!
Tea is ready.
Temperature is in the 70s mostly cloudy.
Have a great day!
I'm biased, too, love the feather patterns. They look like stippling.
- Thread starter
- #23,895
I've been lucky with Northern Fowl mite so far. I spotted it early and had the right stuff to deal with it at hand.Shucks, wish I could join. Murdering mites by fire sounds satisfying.
We've been dealing with northern fowl mites for the first time in yearsAn important difference from red mites being that northern fowl mites do complete their lifecycles on chickens, so using flamethrowers would result in fried chicken.
The a-holes haven't shown their microscopic faces here since Mitesplosion 2020, a fiasco that left me with an obsessive daily mite-check habit, which is how I found mites on chicken-zero this time before they spread to anybirdy else.
The bird in question? Who else but the Mighty Mitey Andre the Giant Chicken?
View attachment 3932829
When hip problems set in, he started roosting on the floor, so I gave him a tumbling mat. He likes it very much. So do mites.
Our mites loiter on some materials more than others, like plastic and new lumber. Here's a closeup of the waterer in the top-left above Andre. The tiny spots in this photo run around if you blow on them.
View attachment 3932828
I guess I could throw a flame here, but I have a mite-murdering system in place: permethrin dust for coops & chickens, and the most affected bird receives 2-3 courses of the topical treatment that shall not be named. It's a last resort but a miracle for someone like Andre who can't preen thoroughly. Anyway, that's my experience, after many lessons learned during Mitesplosion 2020, which stretched 9 months, a horrible masterclass in northern fowl mites.
This time, it took just 10 days of dusting and cleaning to start finding ≤6 mites daily. I haven't uncovered a single mite in 36 hours and haven't detected any among Stilton's or Merle's groups. It's not over, but the progress is a great relief. Especially for no-longer-itchy Andre.
As has been pointed out on this thread, spare coops are a wonderful thing. Dre's Baes avoided infestation by moving back to their mite-free bachelorette coop for now. Their roost and bumbums got poofs of permethrin dust every 1-2 days.
Here they are triple checking that they can't roost with the big fella before toddling to their coop. Andre doesn't tread them much, so they were able to keep foraging together by day at least. Every morning, Andre dances all the way across the yard to greet them. It's a sight.
View attachment 3935331
It helped that we keep clean coops and do quarterly preventative dusting of roosting areas and nesting boxes, more habits learned from Mitesplosion. I had dusted Andre's mat but must've too light. A problem since rectified.
Best of luck to all those battling these tiny jerks using our chickens as meals without consent
- Thread starter
- #23,896
03/09
Mainly dry at 18C but rather overcast. Two and a half hours.
Mainly dry at 18C but rather overcast. Two and a half hours.
have you named the chicks yet? they are looking great.
This is a good one and a reminder of how important it is to post about successes.
Luck...plus experience and preparedness. A winning combination.
Detecting early & treating fast means quickly reducing the mite population back down to where chickens can dustbathe and preen off the rest.
The trick is knowing how to deal with chicken zero. If a bird seems to harbor an unusual amount of parasites, there's likely a health issue, e.g., Andre's mobility and size and who knows what else.
Back in 2020 when I was a new keeper dealing with mites, everything I read was like the article @L-plate chicken mum posted: the advice on BYC was cull, cull, cull. I get it, but like lulu99, I have time to problem solve and learn. And so, on the journey we go!
- Thread starter
- #23,900
One of the problems I've found, not just here on BYC is much of the advice on sickness in chickens, including parasite problems are pretty much a copy and paste from medical texts that were developed for the commercial sector. The commercial sector isn't going to be interested in saving one or two chickens out of possibly thousands or even have the resources to deal with any alternative remedies without impinging on their profit margins.
I've read a lot of stuff directly lifted from the likes of WebMD which is either wrong or completely inappropriate for the backyard keeper.
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