- Jul 4, 2010
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I need help figuring out what it was that I saw this morning in the nesting box. I'll apologize in advance bc I didn't get a picture...but I'll try to describe them as best as I can. This morning, I reached in to grab the egg that was in the nesting box (from either the evening before...daughter must not've checked box when she closed them in for the night, or really early this morning). I noticed it had a lot of poop on it. We get some dirty eggies from time to time, but this one had squooshy-looking poop stuck right to the side of it. So, I pick it up, and notice that kind of nestled in/on the poop was a group of tiny things wiggling around. At first, I thought they were baby spiders...it's exactly what they looked like actually. Like when a spider sac o' eggs hatches and you see the teensy tiny little buggers. These were even smaller than any baby spiders I've seen. They were tannish/golden in color and were teensy teensy...I mean, so small I couldn't even tell if they had legs, and I have excellent near vision. I watched them for a while (still thinking they were spiders...didn't occur to me that they could be mites or baby lice til later). They stayed in a group...hundreds of them, but all together the group was about the size of a pea (although it didn't bulge out or anything...so, a flat pea). They were moving around, the ones on the outside were moving the most...but not leaving the group. The thing is, our 3 birds don't have lice or mites. I checked and double checked and then tonight went out with a flashlight and triple checked. Nothing. And even though I had a hard time looking for legs, I want to say that I did see them...but definitley too small to count. They weren't wormy looking either...they appeared to be walking opposed to squirming.
Please someone tell me that they know what these little buggers are. I just want to know if they are at all a threat to the chickens or us. ie mites, ticks, lice, etc.
ADDED PICTURES!!!
Like I said, they are super super tiny. The toothpick in the one helps show the scale of the litlle buggers. Both times I've seen them now, they were on nasty squooshy poop, dark brown color...if that's at all indicative of anything??? Maybe they are not parasitic or any threat at all to the chickens. Maybe they're just some kind of decomposers. That's what I'm hoping anyway. They didn't stray from the glob of poop at all...so they must like it. Oh also....I thought this was important. I noticed that they are not all the same size. It's hard to tell in the pic, but some are definitely different in size. I'm thinking that maybe they are adult somethings...some different ages than others...opposed to what I thought before (that they are just hatched babies of some kind).
Please someone tell me that they know what these little buggers are. I just want to know if they are at all a threat to the chickens or us. ie mites, ticks, lice, etc.
ADDED PICTURES!!!
Like I said, they are super super tiny. The toothpick in the one helps show the scale of the litlle buggers. Both times I've seen them now, they were on nasty squooshy poop, dark brown color...if that's at all indicative of anything??? Maybe they are not parasitic or any threat at all to the chickens. Maybe they're just some kind of decomposers. That's what I'm hoping anyway. They didn't stray from the glob of poop at all...so they must like it. Oh also....I thought this was important. I noticed that they are not all the same size. It's hard to tell in the pic, but some are definitely different in size. I'm thinking that maybe they are adult somethings...some different ages than others...opposed to what I thought before (that they are just hatched babies of some kind).
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