Like most of you, I love my chickens and like to pick them up, pet them and they like to jump on my lap and dig in my pockets for the bread treats. But lately, I have been feeling like there is something crawling on my skin, even though I never could see anything...until this evening, I felt an itchy feeling on my arm and looking closely, saw some incredibly tiny bug of some sort. Would this be a mite or lice? I am throwing out all my bedding and pillows in case they got there...fortunately I have a water bed and I won't have to get a new mattress...but what can I shower with that will kill what ever these critters are? Tomorrow I will change out all the nesting boxes and thoroughly spray the inside of the coop with whatever the local Wilco farm store recommends. I am "itching" to hear some replies from anyone who has gotten a transfer like this from their chickens..Thanks, Ray
Oh crap! Where do you live? This same thing is happening to me starting yesterday and getting significantly worse today. I am itching from head to toe (and particularly the scalp). It's the strangest thing - like microscopic things are crawling all over me. I did get a new Air Conditioner that is also a de-humidifier though, and so the air in the house has been signicantly drier than before. I am wondering if the dry air is causing dry skin which is causing the itching? IDK?
They are most likely mites. You can use a pine tar shampoo, but it smells funny. Just shampoo your head several times and let the shampoo stay on for awhile. Oh yes, and dust those chickens!
Yes, but my understanding is they are host specific, so they won't actually feed on you, just irritate the heck out of you. They move around so much looking for a nice tasty bird to feed on. Now just imagine if they were biting you as well. That's how the poor chickens feel.
This happened to me once too. I must have washed my hair in a lice shampoo 10 times. But the problem went away quickly after changing clothes and a shower. Your chicken most likely have lice. Chicken lice, as Emys pointed out, are host specific. They will leave as you aren't what they are looking for.
We use wood ash in our coop. We save our ash from the stove and then spread it out. So, our chicken coop is 8' x 10'. We used all of our wood ash, about a foot of ash in a metal trash bin. The chickens bathe in it and spread it around. Kills 'dem little critters good 'n dead! You also can use white vinegar in your laundry for cleaning clothes, etc to get rid of them!
