Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: stamford on June 18, 2009, 22:28
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Hi all, long tim since Ive been here, now need some advice from you please...
Wondered why I was coming in from the coop at night and feeling itchy, then noticed tint tiny lice like creatures crawling through the hairs in my arms but though nothing of it until tonight... Last few nights 2 of our hens have not wanted to go to the coop and would rather sit outside in the run, so put them away tonight and seen hundreds of these tiny critteres on one of the walls inside the house :ohmy: Ive done a quick check through and pretty sure they are not red mite but chicken lice......
Will the hens be ok till i get home tomorrow and I presume I use Diatom, how is it used ?
Any other suggestions welcome
Thanks, Stamford
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where are the hens tonight? if they are in the coop then they will be pretty uncomfortable; imagine being forced to sleep in a bed of fleas!
To use Diatom just squirt it under the feathers, onto the skin. If you are buying a bucket of the stuff then decant it into a clean washing up bottle and use this like a puffer to puff it onto their skin, right under the feathers.
you will have to do all over, ie necks, wings, armpits, back, vent, legs, bellies as there are different lice types for different parts of the hen!
you may also have to consider getting your own house fumigated as these critters can live on humans. I'd recommend Nuvan StayKill spray for your furniture.
EDIT: You will also have to re-treat the henhouse in 7 and 14 days to make sure any babies that have hatched don't survive and give the hen house a good clean out with Poultry Shield to kill anything else in there.
Come to think of it, even though Nuvan StayKill hasn't been licenced for use on poultry it is very effective at killing fleas, so perhaps using this in the hen house too (but deffo not on the hens) would help your situation. Still use the Diatom in 1, 7 and 14 day intervals on the hens even if you do use the Staykill.
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Thanks for the reply suzi, they can get to they're run so they can escape if they need ei they're not cooped up so to speak... I have a very good pet supplies store locally, do you reckon I could get diatom from there or is it generally online ?
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I haven't found Diatom at our local pet places (one independant small petshop, the other Pets At Home) but I bought mine from Wells Poultry (www.chicken-house.co.uk).
I have found their service to be very good and reasonably priced too.
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Red Mite, close up first, ewwww not nice. See how small they are, they are not always red, only red after feeding. Note how they can actually live and breed in the screw head!
(http://i41.tinypic.com/28h33v7.jpg)
Not so close up, note the tell tale signs of poop, it looks a bit like ground pepper. If you see this, you have red mite.
(http://i40.tinypic.com/2ng6dsm.jpg)
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Well it looks kinda peppery inside but the mites are definatley not red.... We're talking TINY little things.. Am i right in saying the red mites are the ones you used to squish with you fingers when you were kids ? If so, definately not those
Pretty sure its lice i'm dealing with :blink: :blink: 99.9% anyways
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Red mite are tiny and not always red. I'll put a pic up in two tics or non red red-mite.
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the red mites are only red after a meal; that's your chickens blood that you can see when they're red :ohmy:
Aparantly diatom is effective agains RM too as it weakens their skin cells and causes them to rupture, but I have no proof of this.
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Here is a another close up form the shot above, as you can see they are almost black.
They can be white, grey, brown, red or near black. VERY small, poultry lice are much bigger than mite and very easily seen whereas mite are tiny and just about visible.
(http://i43.tinypic.com/v7v6tt.jpg)
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Yep, sounds like red mite you have, chicken lice are bigger.
Our birds have never had lice, but Brian culled and dressed some birds for someone lst Christmas and they were covered in them! Bird lice look very similar to human lice.
Red mite are tiny tiny things!!!
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Am i right in saying the red mites are the ones you used to squish with you fingers when you were kids ? If so, definately not those
I think Stamford and I might ( :blush:) be wrong, the ones your thinking about are red spider mite (see them on walls and stuff in warm weather?) if so then they are different :(
Sarah :)
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Great :ohmy: Looks like I'm dealing with mite then :tongue2: Fantastic, i see an expensive day tomorrow, presume the girls will be OK till I get home with my stockpile of sprays etc !!
I dont have any spare room to put the girls in the evening, need to lock them away somewhere cos of the resident foxes...
I'll pop to my local supplies store in the morning and see what he says, he's pretty clued up, has 50 chickens himself so he must know what to do i guess......
Cheers for the info Hensington & Suzi, will keep you informed what happens over the next few days
Red Spider Mite, that was them Sarah, cheers
Thanks GrannieAnnie
Any advice before i go to the supplies tomorrow ?
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The only effective treatment I have found is original creosote. Sorry I can't help further.
I did try one from the feed shop, was £14 came in a white bottle, I *think* it was made by the folk that make poultry shield. Anyways the red mite were bathing in it and doing the backstroke, certainly not dying like they were supposed to for £14 a bottle. (I did condsider a bottle of vodka would be cheaper and I could of drunk it then hit them with the empty)
If you find something that does work then let us all know. I'd rather not use creosote if there is a viable alternative.
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Actually, neat Jeyes fluid kills them stone dead but it's damned expensive stuff to do a whole coop with :(
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I know my supply staore has quite a lot of stuff, so we'll see what he says, thanks all :)
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Red mite is something I've never had but I know that a lot of keepers with wooden sheds use a blow torch to go around all the nooks and crannies after deep cleaning to try to get rid of as many as possible. After that liberally dust all these nooks with diatom.
These a bit of information here http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=5250.0
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Just been over to the pet supplies store, all out of Diatom etc... But got some Duramitex Spray and some Dyna-Mite liquid which is basically lavender, tea tree, lemongrass, cedarwood etc etc
Will attack them this afternoon and see how we get on ;)
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Well sprayed every nook and cranny visable, just waiting for it all to dry off before i put chippings and bedding back in
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Cor...! bet the place smells like an old ladies handbag! :lol: :lol: :lol:
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AAAARRRGGGHHHH
Thats all I can say!!!!!! I am suffering too, they are so hard to get rid :ohmy: :ohmy:
I have now used Cimetrol (milbenex is another product, if you can get it) Also Diatom on the girls & in the coop. Its taken 3 weeks so far !!!!!! Still, they are around. They can also live on the ground for up to 9 months without a feed :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: Tricky & nasty B***ERS. Even the dogs bought them indoors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now spent over £100, Duramitex only kills if you spray them direct!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Used 4 cans of that !!! Waste of time!!!! The Cimetrol seems to work, a slow cruel death :D :D
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The 2 birds that seem more effected look alot healthier this morning, the seem to have more colour in their faces and combs :) Mrs Stamford did a quick check before bed last night and said we still had mite in there, hopefully I'll get my delivery on Monday of Diatom and Poultry Sheild and then I can get to work a bit more on them
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OMG, I thought I was getting on top of the blighters, then today I went to put something in the plastic composter ( usually all the chooks sawdust & straw) & it was covered, top to bottom with them :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
So, if you have been composting it all like me, then you can use diatom watered down on the compost, so much for them not liking plastic!!!!!!!!!!
I have used the cimetrol & will be getting rid of all the stuff in the bin.
I have been waiting for over a week for my diatom & poultry sheild from Wells, I rang in the end & he said the poultry sheild was out of stock, I should get it on monday. Really need the diatom first though :mad: :mad:, no use using the poultry shield til everything has been diatomed!!!!!!!
Good Luck !!!!
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Received my order this morning of Poultry Sheild and Diatom, so actually looking forward to sorting the blighters out.... If that doesnt stop the mite then I'll move the chickens out and petrol bomb the coop ::)
Mind you the Duramitex Spray and Dyna-Mite liquid did seem to slow the * down, so much so that the chickens were happy going to roost at night :)
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Mine didn't arrive :( :(
Out all day tomorrow so will probably come then!
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Well, Monday night I cleaned, scrubbed, sprayed and dusted the hen house from top to bottom, chased the chickens round the garden for 20 minutes trying to catch them so I could dust them over and they went to bed very happy....... Repeated the process last night as we're away the weekend and although there are still signs of mite, its nowhere near as infested as before....
I'll keep an eye on them but the girls are a lot happier now and have got the colour back in their faces :D
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sounds like you are getting there, persistant * aren't they! >:(
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Red mite and lice are gross :tongue2:
They caused me ultimately to lose my girls :(
I'm an expert now, sadly too late to save mine...
Lice and Redmite love each other, better off treating for both, if when you go to your coop you itch like buggery it's likely to be lice.
When you clean out coop if you put they dirty stuff into a dark bucket and starve of light they will gather on the surface of the waste.
To treat both redmite and lice...
Clean out coop throughly, use a hoover for nooks and crannies if you have an old one. But ensure all little crevices are empty. Get a blow torch and run flame up and down crevices, you will hear the little * pop which should be music to a poultry keepers ears. You don't need to scorch the wood, as soon as the surface changes colour move the torch away.
After this you need to spray coop with Barricade - This is best sprayed with a pump up garden sprayer. Then you need to spray hens one by one, or make up soloution in a bucket and plunge them into a bucket of soloution.Let coop and chooks dry out and you should now be lice and redmite free.
One thing you can do as a preventitive is get a bucket of ash and put red mite powder in with ash. Chicken love diving about in it!
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Have I mentioned Creosote yet :tongue2:
One stop solution...
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Have I mentioned Creosote yet :tongue2:
One stop solution...
Great advice!! - Well Done.
If you like poluting your eggs and don't mind working with a known carcigen.
You might like www.keepinghensinthedarkages.com
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My hens prefer not to be eaten alive whilst they sleep though. Creosote works,and once dry there are no fumes to worry about.
Maybe whilst you are browsing you could try this site www.snakeoilpoultrycures.com
Also unless you are in possesion of new research it is listed as a possible carcinogen.
Your world is full of carcinogens, including the stuff you run your car on. Don't worry be happy...
p.s. after the above link do a google search for spellcheck, you would be more credible if you could spell carcinogen or pollution. I would of thought those two would of been a prerequisite for eco warriors.
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I have locked this topic due to the bad behaviour of the above poster.
We criticise information not other members here please remember that or I will show you the door.
Old creosote is not a legal option so we cannot recommend it on these forums (no matter how it is spelt) !