Wee beasties

PurpleDragon · Wee beasties

I'm not sure if these are red mite or not.

Today when I went to get the eggs, I had a hen sitting. I lifted her into another section and when I looked at the eggs she had been sitting on, they had lots of wee black beasties on them.

They are exactly like storm flies to the naked eye (thinner than an eyelash, about half a mm to 1mm long). Dark coloured, not red, even though the hen was sitting on them.

I literally ifted the hen, lifted the eggs and left, but I had a load crawling on me (shudder) so there must be loads in there.

Any ideas? I was thinking about cleaning everything out of the coop and blowtorching it all, but what about the hens? Can't blowtorch a chicken. Well, you can, but not if you want eggs out of her afterwards

wildgarlic

fleas?

PurpleDragon

D'you think so? What would I do to get rid of them?
The hens don't seem all that bothered.
They don't seem to be scratching or dust-bathing any more than usual, they look healthy (in fact, the 'chicks' look amazing - really lovely plumage).
They aren't reluctant to go in at night either.

Sassinak

Are they long and thin rather than round?
If so we have a plague of them here in the garden at the moment. I don't know what they are, but I assume they are being driven out of the harvested crops.
Not chickens pests to the best of my knowledge.
If they are round and a little bit bigger than a fullstop, then they are red mite.
Try the tissue test under your perches just to confirm one way or the other

Julie

One of those links I put in the resource thread has a picture of a red mite on it, if that's any help PD.
Those things sound like harvest lice to me and if so, are harmless.

PurpleDragon

They are long and thin. I had red mite once, a couple of years ago, and eradicated it, thank goodness. I think I would know if it was them again, but I'm gonna dust anyway, I think.

PurpleDragon

Oh
My
God

I have just been out to do the chicken run cleaning. Those poor birds. The place was absolutaly HOACHING with mites. I have cleaned out all the bedding, gone over every square inch with a blowtorch, and then went over it all again with powder.

I tried to catch the chickens to immerse them in a warm water/tea tree solution, hoping to have them dry so I can dust them before bed as well. Unfortunately, on two were taken in, so the rest are unbathed.

I was very satisfied to see that clumps of red mite sizzle and melt into a nice bubbly lump when blowtorched

Did you kow that red mite can live off the hen for 36 weeks!?

So, having done all this, and hopefully gotten all the little nasties, what now? I am fairly sure my two rescue hens are the ones who brought it in first off (I've had hens for 4 years and never a mite!) so I shan't rescue any more hens, but how do I make sure that the hens I have stay mite free in future?

Sassinak

They can catch redmite from wild birds as well. They don't even need to touch the bird, the mites can be left on something in the run or a feather that fell off as they flew over. You can't keep them safe unless you keep them indoors in complete isolation :-(