Recognizing the difference between Normal Preening and a problem with mites or lice

[SusanD]

Hi,

My 16 week old chickens have been preening themselves a lot and losing some of their feathers.. I didn't think it any cause for concern, because they look and feel nicely feathered and don't feel underweight to me. However, I did notice today that a couple of them had black dots on their combs. Based on my reading, I think they are either dirt/pecking spots (probably) or lice (less likely). What should I be looking for to either confirm or rule out a problem? And if they do have a problem, is Sevin a good treatment choice?

Thanks,

Susan

 

[emmaie892000]

Look at the base of the feathers and on the skin on different parts of the body to see if there are any visible mites or mite eggs. It could just be that they are molting, explaining the feathers. I've heard that when the new feather sheathes come out, they can be itchy, so maybe your birds are preening for that reason? The little black spots on the comb show up for all kinds of reasons. It could be the flock figuring out the pecking order, they could have scratched their head on something, or it could be some kind of mites.
Lastly, whether you see mites or not, you can treat with Sevin dust. Clean the bedding in your coop, dust all the surfaces (and the new bedding if you'd like), just make sure to air it out afterwards. Breathing in the dust isn't good for the birds.
If you fill a thin sock or pantyhose with the Sevin dust, you can pat it all around the birds body to get it into their feathers.
If you are fairly sure it's mites, you'll want to repeat the Sevin dust treatment in about a week to make sure that none hatched and lived.

 

[SusanD]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply . I did check and didn't see any evidence of mites, so I'm hoping no news is good news