Mites and Lice
Mites and lice are a fact of life with livestock and will be one of the biggest problems you will face when keeping chickens. You need to be vigilantly on their case, regularly checking your birds and housing for these pests, as they will drive your chooks nuts. Just get a few crawling on your skin and you'll see why! Each year we are finding mites on the increase with changing seasonal conditions and there is no one-off quick fix, so treatment must be repeated and ongoing. There are several types of mites that affect chickens and you are most likely to encounter Red Mites, Fowl Mites and Leg Mites.
See the products we use at the bottom of this page.
See the products we use at the bottom of this page.
Red Mites
Red mites are the scourge of poultry keepers. They live in the environment, not on the birds and seem to be getting worse with every summer. They are present year round, but are active and multiply in the warmer months and become more of a problem. They are found in crevices and timber joints, cluster beneath and at the ends of perching rails, in the rafters and roof linings and in the floor litter and dried-on droppings. They live in your chook house and creep out at night to suck the blood from the birds, which can lead to agitated, anemic, weak and lethargic birds. Laying will cease and deaths can result from substantial blood loss.
It is very hard to get rid of them completely so it is better to get the numbers down and keep them down to a manageable level and under control by regular treatment. During warm weather, poultry mites can reproduce in about a week. Treating after a week has passed can mean the eggs that you didn’t get the first time will have hatched, grown into adult laying mites and laid thousands more eggs. Ensure you re-treat no later than every 5 days to ensure the eggs that survived the first treatment and hatched cannot develop into egg laying adults. In order to stand a chance of getting rid of red mite completely, you need to break their life cycle. To do this and stop them multiplying dramatically, repeat treatments after 5 days, even if you don’t see any activity. The eggs that managed to survive the first treatment will have hatched but the mites won’t be mature enough to lay more eggs.
Check your chook house daily for these nasty little pests, as they can appear overnight from out of nowhere. Take a torch at night and inspect the framing and perches of your house and birds. Your birds may seem restless and irritated. Run your fingers along surfaces and feel for crunching beneath your fingers and check for blood smears.
Those Chinese flat pack houses from the likes of Trade Me, Bunnings, Animates and the Warehouse are BAD NEWS. They may look pretty in the advertising with their cottage windows and stone chip roof, but they are flimsy and will fall to bits in no time, and will need replacing within a year or so, so are not at all economical in the long term. They are harbourages for mites that you will never be able to reach or treat, as they hide in the many layers of roof linings and you wouldn't know they are lurking, waiting for dark to feed on your birds. Believe us, we've been there and the chook house ended up on the fire heap.
Spotting the signs:
Red Mite facts:
Life cycle of a female red mite:
Behaviour pattern of the Red Mite:
Understanding the behaviour of red mites is a necessary part of knowing how to control them.
To deter red mites, try tying bunches of Artemisia (Wormwood) around the house and perches as a deterrent. As an extra measure, add Flowers of Sulphur which is a natural miticide, to nesting material and in your chickens' favourite dusting hole.
Carolynn's top tip for getting rid of hen house mites:
In cases where red mites need to be hit hard for immediate and long term results, fill a garden sprayer with diesel with an optional slosh of citronella oil. Completely strip out the hen house of all bedding and nesting materials, scrape off any dried-on droppings, and spray out thoroughly, inside, outside and underneath. Birds can re-enter once dry and fresh bedding laid down. Leave doors open overnight to let fumes out. IT REALLY WORKS!
FOWL MITES
Fowl mites live on the bird, causing extreme irritation and inflammation, excessive preening and broken feathers. They are microscopic and hard to detect and the only indication of a problem might be when you find yourself tickling with them. So you can understand how irritating it must be for a chicken to be crawling with them constantly.
Spotting the signs:
How to treat:
LEG MITES
Scaly Leg Mite is difficult to spot in the early stages. Check for the tell tail signs of crusty, enlarged, rough and lumpy legs where the scales have become raised. Scaly leg mites live entirely on the bird and are contagious to other birds in the same quarters. They cause irritation as they burrow under the scales and into the skin of the legs and sometimes the comb and wattles. Treat with our Scaly Leg Remedy.
LICE
If you notice grey clusters of eggs attached to the feather shafts around the vent (bum), you have a case of lice and this is very irritating and is passed from bird to bird, especially if you have a rooster.
Red mites are the scourge of poultry keepers. They live in the environment, not on the birds and seem to be getting worse with every summer. They are present year round, but are active and multiply in the warmer months and become more of a problem. They are found in crevices and timber joints, cluster beneath and at the ends of perching rails, in the rafters and roof linings and in the floor litter and dried-on droppings. They live in your chook house and creep out at night to suck the blood from the birds, which can lead to agitated, anemic, weak and lethargic birds. Laying will cease and deaths can result from substantial blood loss.
It is very hard to get rid of them completely so it is better to get the numbers down and keep them down to a manageable level and under control by regular treatment. During warm weather, poultry mites can reproduce in about a week. Treating after a week has passed can mean the eggs that you didn’t get the first time will have hatched, grown into adult laying mites and laid thousands more eggs. Ensure you re-treat no later than every 5 days to ensure the eggs that survived the first treatment and hatched cannot develop into egg laying adults. In order to stand a chance of getting rid of red mite completely, you need to break their life cycle. To do this and stop them multiplying dramatically, repeat treatments after 5 days, even if you don’t see any activity. The eggs that managed to survive the first treatment will have hatched but the mites won’t be mature enough to lay more eggs.
Check your chook house daily for these nasty little pests, as they can appear overnight from out of nowhere. Take a torch at night and inspect the framing and perches of your house and birds. Your birds may seem restless and irritated. Run your fingers along surfaces and feel for crunching beneath your fingers and check for blood smears.
Those Chinese flat pack houses from the likes of Trade Me, Bunnings, Animates and the Warehouse are BAD NEWS. They may look pretty in the advertising with their cottage windows and stone chip roof, but they are flimsy and will fall to bits in no time, and will need replacing within a year or so, so are not at all economical in the long term. They are harbourages for mites that you will never be able to reach or treat, as they hide in the many layers of roof linings and you wouldn't know they are lurking, waiting for dark to feed on your birds. Believe us, we've been there and the chook house ended up on the fire heap.
Spotting the signs:
- Mild or severe irritation in the birds and a loss of egg production. Constant head flicking, especially at night while roosting.
- Birds preen more and bite at their feathers, causing shabby and broken feathers.
- An increase in the number of eggs laid on the floor, as the hens avoid an infested nest box.
- An increase in vent pecking, cannibalism and general distress.
- Anaemia (pale in face) leading to a dull bird and possibly death.
- Pale coloured egg yolks.
- Eggs, perches and walls covered with red blood spotting and mite faeces.
- Keeper suffering with tickling, itching or irritated skin.
- Blood spots on the comb and wattles where mites have chewed.
Red Mite facts:
- All poultry are affected by mites.
- Red Mites are blood sucking parasites.
- Mites cause irritation resulting in excessive pecking and breakages of feathers and in extreme cases, the drawing of blood which can lead to cannibalism in flocks.
- Excess feeding by mites causes potentially fatal anaemia.
- Infestation causes reduction in egg production and egg quality.
- They multiply at an incredible rate: their life cycle is just 7 days and they lay hundreds of eggs in that time.
Life cycle of a female red mite:
- A blood feed takes 1 to 2 hours.
- After feeding a female red mite crawls into a crack or crevice to mate and lay eggs.
- During mild weather, eggs hatch and the larvae emerge in 2 or 3 days.
- 24 hours later, larvae change into 8 legged protonymphs.
- The protonymphs change into deutonymphs 24 to 36 hours later.
- They start to feed and become adult red mites. The females start to lay eggs again and the cycle is repeated.
- The complete cycle takes about 7 days to complete.
Behaviour pattern of the Red Mite:
Understanding the behaviour of red mites is a necessary part of knowing how to control them.
- Red Mite feed in the dark.
- Chickens will feed on Red Mite if they see them and have access. This is why they tend to hide in cracks and crevices or cluster together on the underside of perches and rafters and in dried-on droppings on perches and floors, but just out of reach of birds during the day.
- When darkness arrives they move onto the birds and begin to feed.
- If it is known where the mites will be then targeted treatment can be applied.
To deter red mites, try tying bunches of Artemisia (Wormwood) around the house and perches as a deterrent. As an extra measure, add Flowers of Sulphur which is a natural miticide, to nesting material and in your chickens' favourite dusting hole.
Carolynn's top tip for getting rid of hen house mites:
In cases where red mites need to be hit hard for immediate and long term results, fill a garden sprayer with diesel with an optional slosh of citronella oil. Completely strip out the hen house of all bedding and nesting materials, scrape off any dried-on droppings, and spray out thoroughly, inside, outside and underneath. Birds can re-enter once dry and fresh bedding laid down. Leave doors open overnight to let fumes out. IT REALLY WORKS!
FOWL MITES
Fowl mites live on the bird, causing extreme irritation and inflammation, excessive preening and broken feathers. They are microscopic and hard to detect and the only indication of a problem might be when you find yourself tickling with them. So you can understand how irritating it must be for a chicken to be crawling with them constantly.
Spotting the signs:
- Part the feathers around the oil gland at the base of the tail. Check for black spots (mite feces) and white spots (mite eggs) in the feathers, often matted together.
- Black scabs at the base of feathers around the tail and vent area.
- Mites crawling through feathers. Easier to spot on white birds.
- Tickling on keeper's skin. Mites may be hard to see until you feel them!
- Patches of broken feathers where chickens have been ripping at themselves with the irritation.
How to treat:
- As a preventative, try mixing garlic powder into their feed, as mites don't seem to like the taste of garlic-tainted blood. The garlic will also boost immunity and wont affect the taste of your eggs.
- Add generous amounts of Sulphur and Diatomaceous Earth to their favourite dusting hole. Include wood ash if you have access to some. A dust bath is one of the most important facilities your birds should have access to.
LEG MITES
Scaly Leg Mite is difficult to spot in the early stages. Check for the tell tail signs of crusty, enlarged, rough and lumpy legs where the scales have become raised. Scaly leg mites live entirely on the bird and are contagious to other birds in the same quarters. They cause irritation as they burrow under the scales and into the skin of the legs and sometimes the comb and wattles. Treat with our Scaly Leg Remedy.
LICE
If you notice grey clusters of eggs attached to the feather shafts around the vent (bum), you have a case of lice and this is very irritating and is passed from bird to bird, especially if you have a rooster.