Creepy crawlies???

Yuck - I'm itching in sympathy 

Red mite are nocturnal and tend to hide in cracks and crevices during the day.  They are very dark red in colour and look like tiny red dots.  You don't tend to see them which is why they get missed.  If your girls are very late into bed this can indicate red mite. 

Have you checked your girls to see if it's lice.  They tend to cluster around the bum at the ends of the feathers closest to the skin so you need to turn them upside down and part the feathers down to the skin.

Both the above are blood suckers so will debilitate your chicks quickly if left untreated.

If the girls are clean, there are mites/lice that live in the bedding alone.  I've had them once before and found a spray down of the house with PoultryShield cleared them 

Boy I am still itching!!! and have taken your advice the girls are clean everywhere and no sign of the crawlies and they were out in the day before and quite active in little clumps just looking like brown compost dust eeek still itching,

Has anyone read this and not itched 

Thanks again

broody

Might be worth chucking your sawdust and buying fresh unless you are sure it's totally clean    The critters I had were only in the bedding and not on the birds and were tiny but visable and you could make out little legs etc.  I've been lucky and only had red mite in the chicken house once.  They are minute and are just dots.  I used a couple of spray treatments a few weeks apart to clear these. You can use red mite powder on your bedding as a deterrant to both and it's worked for me so far although some don't rate it, so your choice.

I was itching for days afterwards when I found creepy crawlies in the hen house