Hi y'all. I currently have a lice/mite infestation but I'm having a really hard time deciphering what critters I actually have. It is winter here.
Two weeks ago, I discovered some small brown to black things crawling on my chickens' vent areas (they had just arrived since I check their vents often). At first, I thought they were mites, but a few days later I found adult lice bodies & the little guys I saw earlier under the thing they sleep on. The adult bodies were segmented, brown and straw colored. So then I thought they had lice. I promptly killed the lice I discovered. A week or so later I found a smaller collection of these bugs under there which I hadn't seen before. The hens' condition ebbed and flowed - some hens' infestations improved, others got worse. As time went on, I saw some really tiny guys, and other bigger ones. None were as big as the adult lice though.
The little guys are bigger now (though still smaller than the lice), and they are black-colored. Sometimes they are red in the last few days - I presume they are red due to blood covering them. Sometimes they eat the hens' skin away in sections, causing a super light bleed on the surface. I'm not 100% sure what the color is from. If you squish a red one, you see a red streak. No streaks with the other colors. These wounds scab and heal up.
The critters suffocate easily, and are soft-bodied. You coat the bugs in anything, and they remain motionless. Wall Sprays? Check. Cooking Oils? Check. A hen even shot a watery poop onto the windowsill, and some of the critters got hit with the poop and slammed onto the windowsill. They're dead.
I wanted to get a second opinion since I'm not 100% sure of what we have. Will post photos later. Thanks for your time in this matter.
Two weeks ago, I discovered some small brown to black things crawling on my chickens' vent areas (they had just arrived since I check their vents often). At first, I thought they were mites, but a few days later I found adult lice bodies & the little guys I saw earlier under the thing they sleep on. The adult bodies were segmented, brown and straw colored. So then I thought they had lice. I promptly killed the lice I discovered. A week or so later I found a smaller collection of these bugs under there which I hadn't seen before. The hens' condition ebbed and flowed - some hens' infestations improved, others got worse. As time went on, I saw some really tiny guys, and other bigger ones. None were as big as the adult lice though.
The little guys are bigger now (though still smaller than the lice), and they are black-colored. Sometimes they are red in the last few days - I presume they are red due to blood covering them. Sometimes they eat the hens' skin away in sections, causing a super light bleed on the surface. I'm not 100% sure what the color is from. If you squish a red one, you see a red streak. No streaks with the other colors. These wounds scab and heal up.
The critters suffocate easily, and are soft-bodied. You coat the bugs in anything, and they remain motionless. Wall Sprays? Check. Cooking Oils? Check. A hen even shot a watery poop onto the windowsill, and some of the critters got hit with the poop and slammed onto the windowsill. They're dead.
I wanted to get a second opinion since I'm not 100% sure of what we have. Will post photos later. Thanks for your time in this matter.
