The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: exmoorlady on August 20, 2011, 08:03:45 pm
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I cleaned My chicken house last week and found lice(???) in the bedding. I cleaned the house thoroughly and put louse powder in the house and on the chickens ( who incidentally had no creatures on them) I cleaned them out today to find the same problem. Has anyone else come across these creatures? They are not on my hens. They are small and white.and make me feel incredibly itchy. I always look out for red mites at this time of year and make sure I clean the house regulary but fortunately no sign of them yet. Any help gratefully recieved as usual
Sharon :chook:
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lice you will see if you investigate around the vent. sometimes you find horrid looking clusters of grey egg sacks. If they are small and white they might still be mites - they only look red if they had a feed on blood, so I rad somewhere. Diatom them!
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Northern fowl mites look similar to red mite except the colour and definitely make you itchy. Whatever creepy-crawly they are louse powder is a good start and will need repeating. I've tried using household flea spray in the chicken house with some effect - you need to keep the chickens away from it as its not good for birds, so when I've done it its been on a nice day first thing in the morning and the chickens are shut out of the house all day - also needs well ventilating. If you can paint the inside of the house with a gloss paint this will help especially if it plugs any crevices and then the little bugs have fewer places to hide and if you use white paint they will be easier to see. It will probably be a battle whatever you do, until the weather cools down sufficiently to reduce their numbers.