subject: Chicken Health Problems - Can You Identify Chicken Mites In Your Flock? [print this page] Chicken health problemscan crop affect your flock very quickly sometimes.Some of the common chicken health problems you may have to deal withinclude chicken fleas and mites which can suck the life out of your chickens.It can sometimes be difficult to tell chicken fleas from chicken mites if you don't know whato look for.
One of my friends hashad backyardchickens for years and she called me in a panic a few days ago.She wasout there cleaning out her chiken coop and found that there were tiny parasites in her hen house. She had never had parasites before and she had not ideawhat they were. When she entered the hen house,the parasites were crawling all over her, her kids and upon close examination, her chickens.
She hates bugs of all kindsso she asked me to run out there andhelp her deal with thembecause she was so disgusted by the parasites. I jumped in my car and ran over there. Wecaught some of her chickens (which was easy thank goodness because they were raised by her kids) and we figured out that they were covered with chicken fleas, not mites as she first suspected.The next step was to kill the darn mites.
The important distinction here was that these parasites were chicken fleas because they live on the birds themselves, not just in the hen house and chicken run. Red mites only come out when it gets dark to feed and they pretty much hide out in the hen house. Where as chicken fleas crawl around all over the place and will crawl all over you when you get within range which is how they spread. I had to be very careful that I didn't take them home to my flock!
After some research, we found out that we had to do a complete kill of everything; the hen house, the chicken feeders, chicken waters, the perches, the chicken run, etc. with malathion. We used a flea bomb first in the chicken house and we gave the chickens a malathion bath. This is just what we decided to use however, there are several products that you can use to kill the chicken fleas. They have a lifecycle that you have to interrupt so you have to treat for them every four days until they are gone.
She was lucky in that her husband is very handy and it was warm outside. He put up a quick, ugly temporary "shed" for the birds for a few weeks. It was made out of some old plywood and chicken wire that he had. Then he tore it down after the chickens were moved back to their original home.
Chicken Health Problems - Can You Identify Chicken Mites In Your Flock?
