Poultry farming » Chickens
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Kira Stoletova
Insects and parasites bother not only animals, but also parrots, chickens and other birds. The chicken mite is a parasite that is active at night and causes great discomfort to domesticated birds. We need to find out ways to deal with it. And if a mite appears on chickens, treat it.
Chicken mite
The immunity of young animals weakens, the productivity of laying hens decreases and the growth of chickens slows down. How to deal with the parasite that is chicken and feather mites at home?
How to recognize chicken mites
The chicken feather mite is a blood-sucking parasite that lives on the body of domestic chickens in chicken coops.
Dangerous insects are carriers of infectious diseases. The productivity of laying hens is the first to suffer from the active reproduction of mites. What does a common chicken mite look like? In appearance, chicken mites are no different from other bird parasites. Due to their small size (up to 1 cm in length), they can easily fit into cracks and small spaces.
Pests quickly adapt to any environment and survive in extremely low or high temperatures, which complicates the positive results of controlling them. The chicken parasite lives in uncleaned, damp poultry houses with poor ventilation. It occupies litter and nests, and then moves onto the bird's body. Tenacious parasites bite people, but only in rare cases when a person spends a lot of time near the chicken coop. But chicken red mite in humans can be successfully cured. Its bites are very painful and very dangerous for animals and humans. The venom of the chicken mite is injected into the wound, creating a painful red lesion up to 5 cm in diameter and preventing blood clotting. As a result, concomitant diseases against the background of weakened immunity can become a serious problem if you do not fight them.
If a tick bites chickens, small wounds and dried blood remain on the birds' bodies.
It is difficult to notice bite marks, which means you need to look carefully for both red and other chicken mites, especially under the thick down of the chicken. Birds show nervousness and a painful state, because birds are unable to scratch the bite site due to the structure of their bodies. Young animals suffer from tick infestations more often than adults. Regular treatment of the chicken coop with various agents against harmful parasites is the key to the health of all poultry and therefore any chicken mite in this environment will not be dangerous.
Reasons for appearance
You can't completely protect chickens from ticks, but you can prevent their spread. In a poultry house, parasites appear with new livestock or through contact with rodents or wild birds. Poor cleaning of the chicken coop also leads to the spread of arthropods. Feces, fluff and other traces of bird activity provide a fertile breeding ground for ticks. Poor ventilation and high humidity levels also contribute to this.
Chickens rarely bathe directly in water. Therefore, they need sand baths to clean their feathers. Floundering in it, they shake off small parasites from themselves. Large crowding in cells leads to the rapid spread of ticks. Arthropods can be brought into a bird's home through human clothing, shoes, and equipment.
Consequences of a tick bite
If the egg production of laying hens has decreased, the bird is constantly itching (behaving aggressively or too active), and the young animals look bad, the birds should be examined and checked in the chicken coop and the infected birds should be treated. Parts of the body that are affected by insect bites:
- neck;
- wings;
- skin under the tail;
- nostrils;
- head.
In some cases, you can follow the movement of the tick along the chicken’s body (the places where the thin skin is most vulnerable), but you should not wait for such clues. The danger of a tick invasion is that they attack the ears, larynx and trachea of broilers, which is why in birds the first symptoms do not appear immediately, and noticeable signs develop against the background of secondary diseases. In sick birds, head tremors begin, coughing attacks appear, and wheezing is heard in the lungs.
At the first manifestations of the disease, you need to start treatment and completely clean the chicken coop. To check whether there are parasites in the chicken house or whether emergency measures helped, you should take a clean piece of paper and place it in hard-to-reach parts of the chicken coop. In cracks under the floor or along poorly ventilated walls. If dark spots appear on the paper, the mites have not disappeared.
Prevention
Tips on how to prevent chicken fleas from infecting birds:
- There should be no gaps in the chicken coop through which rodents can enter. Small mammals are considered one of the carriers of external pests.
- It is necessary to regularly clean and disinfect the premises in which the birds are kept and the walking area.
- Be sure to do a visual inspection of the livestock. If infected animals are found, they must be transplanted to another chicken coop.
- When purchasing new livestock, be sure to quarantine for a week. Visually inspect your skin daily. Before uniting the herd, it is imperative to treat the new ones with means against external pests.
Methods of controlling parasites
In order to get rid of ticks on chickens, farmers lubricate the bites with oil on those parts of the birds' body on which unhealed wounds and legs are visible. After a couple of days the tick dies. The wounds are disinfected and coated with cream, which promotes rapid healing. The poultry house must be cleaned and disinfected, and the chickens, after suffering from illness and treatment, must be moved to a dry, ventilated room. As a result, the dangerous red chicken mite will be completely destroyed.
There are many methods that make fighting ticks easy and effective. Effective ways to combat ticks are:
- Treatment of a chicken flock begins with treating the skin of the birds with special medicinal agents. The procedure is carried out twice a week at weekly intervals. Sevin powder is the best remedy for chicken feather mites. Feathers are sprinkled with a powder preparation, and birds and their habitat are sprayed with disinfectant sprays.
- Sand and ash are the best natural remedies to completely get rid of pests. The 2 ingredients are mixed, and then the mixture is poured into a glass container. The container with the product is placed in the yard. Chickens in close proximity to the product will independently clear themselves of ticks. Soon you won't have to worry about the problem of mites.
- Feather mites do not tolerate too high temperatures, so it would be a good idea to treat the floor and walls of the chicken coop with boiling water, a flame (if the house is not wooden) or a blowtorch. Quartz lamps do an excellent job of killing mites; this method is used on large poultry farms. At home, it is also suitable for insect control.
- Plants will help remove such aliens. Mint, parsley, onion, celery and garlic are laid out in the chicken coop (along the entire perimeter). Specific odors will quickly drive pests away from the poultry house.
Treatment with sprays and aerosols should not be used without consultation with specialists. The veterinarian will accurately prescribe medication and tell you in detail how to fight chicken mites at home without harming the birds.
Bird ticks are dangerous. Pests carry serious diseases: plague, borreliosis and cholera. If appropriate treatment and prevention measures are not taken, the birds will die and harm humans.
Treating the chicken coop for ticks
To find out whether a parasite has appeared, you need to know what a red chicken mite looks like. This parasite, having drunk blood, changes its color and becomes purple. Having learned that red mites have infested domestic chickens, the farmer urgently begins to completely disinfect the premises. Once it gets rid of the pests, preventative measures will prevent further attacks.
The red tick is tenacious and reproduces quickly. A female insect lays 20 eggs at a time. Adults actively reproduce both in the warm season and on rainy days. Insects remain dangerous to people for six months. In unfavorable conditions they hibernate.
Features of preventative cleaning of the poultry house:
- in late spring and early autumn, a routine examination of birds is carried out for the presence of wounds and dried blood;
- It is recommended to promptly clean traces of droppings, change bedding, sweep away cobwebs and disinfect feeders with boiling water;
- the courtyard is sprinkled with dry sand and its cleanliness is monitored;
- once a month the premises where birds live should be disinfected.
It is easier to carry out periodic prevention than to treat young animals for a long period of time from wounds that cover their legs, neck and other vulnerable, sensitive areas of the skin. Chickens that live in cages suffer from insects less often and it is easier to detect mites on the feet of some chickens. Parasites breed in wooden chicken coops. A small area prevents pests from actively reproducing and leaving multiple bites on the bird’s paws.
Remedies for parasites that live in the feathers of small parrots and domestic birds are easy to find in the pharmacy. The necessary and appropriate drug is prescribed by a veterinarian. The specialist examines all poultry on the farm and makes an accurate diagnosis of wounds on the bird’s body.
Preventive actions
Everyone knows that it is easier to prevent a problem than to solve it later. Therefore, every bird owner should be familiar with preventive measures to prevent the appearance of ectoparasites in the chicken coop.
- Make every effort to protect your coop from rats and mice, which are considered a natural reservoir for blood-sucking skin parasites.
- Cleaning should affect not only the chicken coop itself, but also the area surrounding it.
- It is necessary to periodically inspect chickens in order to promptly identify infected specimens and remove them from healthy flocks as quickly as possible.
- Having purchased a new chicken, it is necessary to subject it to preventive treatment after a thorough examination. Only after these procedures have been carried out can it be moved in with the rest of the inhabitants of the chicken coop.
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Skin parasites in the chicken coop
Bird mutilation
The legs and skin of poultry are attacked by two types of pests: acariform and feather insects. A mite on chicken legs (acariform type) causes a serious disease - knemidocoptic mange. Roosters suffer from a complex disease more often than chickens and laying hens. The symptoms of this dangerous disease are as follows: the upper layer of skin on the legs becomes thicker, the phalanges of the fingers become covered with a gray coating, and the bird looks weak and lethargic. If you do not start urgent medical treatment, the deformation of the rooster’s limbs cannot be corrected.
Remedies for knemidocoptosis will not cost the farmer too much. To treat the disease, people use cheap and natural birch tar. A product with a characteristic odor is used to treat diseased areas of the skin (so that the infection does not spread throughout the body). The course of treatment with a folk remedy is 6 days.
Acaricidal agents are used to treat poultry as the most effective medications. The product is rubbed into the lower limbs of the rooster. The desired result can be seen on the second day. The feather mite in chickens settles on the feather shaft and in the hole, directly sucking blood from the bird. Loss of blood leads to complete destruction of the feathers and the chicken, if not treated promptly, may be left without feathers. The consequences of such an attack on chicken coops can be found in many photos.
Down eater
It is quite simple to determine whether a chicken is infected with a feather-eater - the flight and tail feathers acquire many holes, as if from a needle, and the bird experiences local dermatitis and loss of feathers.
Chickens exhibit a change in behavior: pulling out feathers, scratching areas of the skin.
Once they appear, down feather eaters settle on a new “host” and lay eggs at the base of the feathers, so it is necessary to treat not only the chicken coop, but the chickens themselves with solutions recommended by veterinarians.
Infectious diseases are transmitted by common insects such as fleas.
Mites in parrots: treatment and harm to people
Bird mites often infect parrots. In pet stores you often see these birds with a noticeable rash on their fingertips. Redness is a sign that the subcutaneous parasite feeds on the blood of the bird. The red mite infects different parts of the bird's body, leaving it without feathers. Growths form on the affected areas, and how many there will be depends on the bird’s immunity. The number of bites does not always indicate the severity of the disease.
Pets will be able to remove and relieve pain if they lubricate itchy wounds with Vaseline or oil. These ticks do not pose a threat to humans. Ticks do not take root on people either on the face or on any other part of the body. A clear photo of a tick that appears threatening shows how many adaptations the parasite has to feed from the host's body. Pimples on the face and itching can cause serious concern in people. Consultation with a specialist will dispel all fears.
During intensive treatment, the bird's body weakens, therefore, to avoid consequences, the bird is prescribed a course of vitamins. Special vitamin complexes are fed to birds in whole courses. Thanks to the farmer's prompt actions, the parasites not only disappear, their further attacks are completely excluded (prevention, which provides guarantees). Now if mites appear on chickens, we know how to fight them and defeat them. Being able to protect your own farm and protecting birds are two different concepts.
