Feather mites or something worse?

[Optimus Pollo]

I have a large flock 33 hens and 2 roosters. Some of them started having a strange loss of feathers as seen in the pictures. It usually starts on their back near the tail and very slowly (weeks-months) gets worse with the loss traveling up the back. Some birds also had feather loss on top of the head early-on. I've seen no obvious bugs on them or in poop. I treated for presumed feather mites with Ivermectin Pour On, administered directly to skin at the base of their necks every 10 days for 4 treatments. The feather loss seemed to stop for a couple months but has started again. What am I missing? I've had 4 unexplained deaths over the last year (2 within the last 6 months) with leg paralysis in 2 birds and the other 2 dying suddenly and finding them to be very thin after death. Several birds have also continued to lay very very soft eggs and others laying misshapen, rough shelled eggs. Egg sizes has diminished a lot over the last 6 months. The birds have a diet of Feather Fixer and oyster shell freely available to them. They have a 1/2 acre to themselves. I live in San Tan, Arizona. The flock is 2 years old.

 

[nuthatched]

Hes being picked by the other birds.
How big is your coop?

 

[sourland]

It looks like your flock has developed the bad habit of feather pecking/plucking.

 

[Optimus Pollo]

Hes being picked by the other birds.
How big is your coop?

They have free range of 1/2 acre and the roosting area is 60' x 12'. Their space is massive and I've seen no evidence of picking at each other or themselves. This isn't isolated to one bird, i only showed a picture of one bird. About 25 of my birds now look similar. Look closely at the pattern of feather destruction on the large feathers of the tail. It looks like they are being eaten away in one firection moving from the body up the feathers. I'm convinced this is an infestation of some type but can't figure out what it is. I thought it was quill mites/feather mites but the response to the ivermective pour on was short lived. How do I know if it's red mites or some other lethal infestation?

 

[Optimus Pollo]

It looks like your flock has developed the bad habit of feather pecking/plucking.

They have free range of 1/2 acre and the roosting area is 60' x 12'. Their space is massive and I've seen no evidence of picking at each other or themselves. This isn't isolated to one bird, i only showed a picture of one bird. About 25 of my birds now look similar. Look closely at the pattern of feather destruction on the large feathers of the tail. It looks like they are being eaten away in one firection moving from the body up the feathers. I'm convinced this is an infestation of some type but can't figure out what it is. I thought it was quill mites/feather mites but the response to the ivermective pour on was short lived. How do I know if it's red mites or some other lethal infestation?

 

[Riverbend Gal]

Have you determined how to treat this? My flock of 24 is looking very much like yours. I've treated with elector and permethrin although not as religiously as I should!

 

[BGW]

They have free range of 1/2 acre and the roosting area is 60' x 12'. Their space is massive and I've seen no evidence of picking at each other or themselves. This isn't isolated to one bird, i only showed a picture of one bird. About 25 of my birds now look similar. Look closely at the pattern of feather destruction on the large feathers of the tail. It looks like they are being eaten away in one firection moving from the body up the feathers. I'm convinced this is an infestation of some type but can't figure out what it is. I thought it was quill mites/feather mites but the response to the ivermective pour on was short lived. How do I know if it's red mites or some other lethal infestation?

Is it lice??

 

[Optimus Pollo]

Is it lice??

I've never seen evidence of lice on my birds except for one I found who had apparently been on the ground for about 2 days before she was noticed and brought inside. She had lice on her. Does that mean there are lice on my other birds or did the lice just overtake my sick bird that had been on the ground, moving very little?

 

[Optimus Pollo]

Have you determined how to treat this? My flock of 24 is looking very much like yours. I've treated with elector and permethrin although not as religiously as I should!

I haven't been able to determine if the treatment has been effective yet or not. I've only once done the treatment with Elector. My property is so large that I used 3/4 of the $200 bottle for a single treatment.

I tried permetherin dusting in the beginning and dusted weekly for a month without improvement. Then I went to Ivermectin pour on and treated with that about 5 times. (I wasn't good about treating every 10 days exactly so I extended the treatments until I was able to do it every 10 days for 3 consecutive treatments). The Ivermectin seemed to work for a couple months but then it started back again. I treated the once with Elector about 3-4 weeks ago and I'm still waiting to see if there is obvious improvement.

 

[Tab P]

Do you have an update? I've tried everything, and things in combination, religiously. DE in dust baths, sulfur in dust baths, permethrin in coop, ivermectin pour on, finally got elector psp, treated birds, coop and run, then found it is not effective for depluming mites. Getting ready to treat with ivermectin again. Also it's frigid cold here in Ohio, limiting options, so yay (not).