The Quack Shack

[Trimurtisan]

In the red circle you can see a few mites. They are not invisible, but are hard to see. I do have bad vision though...

 

[Duck_life]

If you can catch them, and they have mites, the mites will transfer to your hand. That's assuming it's an infestation vs just a few. The recent momma had them pretty bad and simply picking her up deposited 50+ mites on my hand. The chicks that just had a few though did not do that when picking up.

I wouldn't use your hand as a definitive test, but if there is a whole lot on and a bird, and that bird is hard to catch, touching it should be enough.

Thanks. Hopefully it isn't mites right now as there food has simply gone up in the winter. Not sure what would be wrong with the guineas if that isn't the case.

 

[Duck_life]

In the red circle you can see a few mites. They are not invisible, but are hard to see. I do have bad vision though...
View attachment 1983695

I see them, they're tiny. My eldest sister had a flock of chickens, every time you picked them up bugs would crawl on your hands, tiny, grey, ugly bugs. They didn't die till around 3 years old, due to neglect.

 

[duluthralphie]

Didn't @duluthralphie own guineas? Have you ever experienced random feather loss?

Yep, I owned Guineas, but they were all sentenced to the Reformatory.

They drop feathers like normal birds. I don’t recall them molting all at once but I am sure they do.

They would pull feathers out of other birds for fun, on days they were bored and they couldn’t find a tourist to maul, or bank truck to rob.

 

[Duck_life]

Yep, I owned Guineas, but they were all sentenced to the Reformatory.

They drop feathers like normal birds. I don’t recall them molting all at once but I am sure they do.

They would pull feathers out of other birds for fun, on days they were bored and they couldn’t find a tourist to maul, or bank truck to rob.

They are only a couple months, I'm sure molting wouldn't be the case, they are bleeding. I agree, guineas are a pain, they chase anything in there path.

 

[duluthralphie]

If they are young it’s normal, they lose juvenile feathers and get adult feathers. It happens about the time they give up stealing candy from babies and graffiti and switch to highway robbery and assault.

 

[Duck_life]

Alright, hopefully it is just that. Male seems fine, no feather loss at all.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I do know that if any thing out of the ordinary crops up on ones body pecking can start and get out of hand but I doubt it's that since it's more than one. Mites look like tiny black pepper and if you run you hand through the feathers down to the skin you may see them even get them on you but don't freak out a good shower will get them off, and lice look around vent area they will be attached to the feather shafts. I have put my hand down into shavings before and had them climb up onto my hand. So cleaning out the coop destroying or carrying off old bedding spraying down the house top to bottom and then treating birds then putting inside new bedding. It's a lot of work but lice an mites cause anemia and can kill if left alone.

 

[Trimurtisan]

I've got to quit clicking on rooster threads. They seem to just get me aggravated.

 

[Miss Lydia]

What’s going on?