How Do I Treat My Chickens For Red Mites?
Getting mites in your coop is pretty heart breaking, your poor hens will be itchy and uncomfortable. Red Mites along with other mites live on the bird but can also live in the wood of the house and can also reside in their bedding. They can cause skin rashes and irritations, lameness, diarrhoea and can even be fatal if left untreated.
Red Mites, What You need To Know
First of all don’t be afraid to glove up and hit them hard, red mites can’t live on humans so you are safe to tackle the issue head on.
Red mite are tiny but will be visible on the birds, they are around the size of a pinprick, grey initially and then turn red after they’ve fed on your hen’s blood!
They live inside the chicken coop, lay their eggs within crevices and cracks, and feed on all parts of your poor chickens whilst they sleep at night including: blood, the feathers, the skin and the scales of your chicken’s skin!
Red mite will take hold of your coop very quickly if left untreated. After being laid, the mite larvae hatch within 2-3 days and are fully grown adults within 7 days, they can then live for 8 months!
How Do I know if I Have Red Mite?
Red mite is pretty easy to see on your hens, check their back end and look under the feather fluff on the skin, if you have mites you will see them. You should check your hens over once every month or so to ensure they are well and looking for
mites is key when you do a health check. There are other signs that you may notice that might lead you to want to have a look for mites on your bird.
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- Reduced egg production
- Lethargic & unhappy birds
- Weight loss
- General poor health, your chickens could develop anaemia due to the blood loss – be on the lookout for pale, floppy crowns as a sign.
- Your chickens may not want to be put away at night since the mites attack in the evening, they are reluctant to enter the coop for fear of being nibbled.
Some of these symptoms could be related to other issues but if you notice any of them it is best to give your hens a good check over.
Can I Treat Red Mite?
YES!
Here is out 3 step guide to treating red mites in your poultry and house.
Step 1.
Take all your chickens out of the house and run and put the girls somewhere temporary for a few days, try to limit the places they go so as not to spread the infestation around even more.
Give each hen a good wash in warm water using a medicated pet shampoo, make sure you rinse each bird thoroughly and pay special attention to their bottom area as this is where mites like to gather. Blow dry the hens fully then cover them in Natural DE powder using gloves you can massage it into their feather base to ensure it makes contact with the skin. Use a DE Puffer for easy application, simply puff the powder directly on to the hen with no mess or fuss.
Step 2
Remove all dirty litter form the hen house and then scrub the house down with a poultry cleanser inside and out, use warm water and a good strong scrubbing brush.
Then, using a Virkon sachet diluted into 5ltrs of water in a garden sprayer, spray generously to disinfect the entire coop inside and out, get in all the corners and at the same time do the entire run ensuring the Virkon solution gets everywhere, (use gloves and wear a mask). Virkon is fantastic we use it on our farm and it will kill everything.
Step 3
Once you have done this you will need to let the house and run dry out unoccupied for 24 hours, you can then put fresh wood shavings back in your coop, do not use straw! Straw can actually contain mites and could bring mites back into your now lovely clean environment. Sawdust or wood shavings are heat treated when sealed killing off all mites and bugs.
Repeat the entire cleaning regime every 2 months or so until you are on top of it and then to maintain good cleanliness going forward repeat the whole process once every 4-5 months or if you spot another mite. A really deep clean will prevent mites taking hold and performed regularly means you should never have an issue with mites again. Ensure you provide your hens with a dust bath that has been treated with Natural DE powder, this will allow your hens to naturally keep mites at bay by dust bathing in this mixture of sand and DE powder. We also recommend applying DE powder direct to you hen with a puffer bottle once every month going forward.
How to hatch fertile eggs with a broody Silkie.
5 Simple Steps on how to use your broody Silkie chicken to hatch eggs for you.
Silkie chickens are by far the most broody of the chicken world, often going broody even with no eggs to sit on, a Silkie chicken will sit fast even if a herd of wilder beast are running through her coup! Not much will shift her!
This makes her the ideal chicken to hatch fertile eggs with a great success rate.
They are wonderful for hatching eggs because not only are they very broody but they make wonderful mothers and you will not need an artificial brooder and light she will do all the work for you.
So whether you want to hatch more Silkies, other hen eggs or even ducks a Silkie is your one stop incubator solution for hatching small numbers.
See below Pipinchick Poultry’s 5 simple steps to hatching successfully with a broody Silkie chicken.
1. How to tell if you have a broody hen.
Silkies will be very easy to spot once they have gone broody, they will stay in their nesting box and will NOT come out, they will cluck at you if you get too close to them which is a very uncharacteristic trait of a none broody Silkie.
You can encourage a Silkie to go broody by placing a couple of dummy eggs in her nest area, these can be unfertilised eggs or rubber dummy eggs which you can buy from any good pet store or poultry centre.
Once you have noticed that your Silkie is broody you can then put fertilised eggs under her.
For the best chance of a good hatch rate you do not want your eggs to be more than 10 days old.
2. How many eggs can my broody Silkie hatch?
Silkies will also hatch other species for you, from ducks to other chicken breeds; she will then raise those babies as her own.
She is an amazing mother and diligent to her young.
When you have noticed your Silkie is broody you can then put fertile eggs under her, up to 10 bantam eggs, 6 normal hen eggs or 5 duck eggs. She can even sit on larger eggs but I would only put about 2-3 under 1 hen.
3. How to manage a sitting Silkie hen.
If you have decided to use your broody Silkie to hatch eggs then she will not require much from you.
Make sure she stays warm and dry.
She will get off to eat once a day but keep an eye on this as sometimes a Silkie can go so broody she will forget to eat or drink, make sure the food and water is close by so she can get to them easily. If she is not getting up to eat and drink then you will need to remind her that this is a god idea.
Gently move her off her eggs, she will give you a little bit of chatter but persevere, once she is off she will automatically go for her food and water then immediately sit back down again.
She will almost never not sit back so don’t worry, if she does not sit back then you will have to move the eggs quickly to an incubator…. But this never happens!
Keep an eye on her after this, she should then remember to get up and feed, if she doesn’t just keep repeating this once a day until she does.
The eggs will take up to 21 days to start piping in the case of hen eggs.
Eggs from common ducks like Pekins require 28 days to hatch. Eggs from Muscovy ducks hatch in about 35 days.
4. What to do when the eggs start Pipping.
When your eggs begin to pip (the chick uses their little beak to break the shell from the inside). This means your chicks are on their way, this can begin anywhere from 2 days before hatch date to up to 2 days after so the main thing is to be patient.
With a sitting Silkie you will not need to do much, she will do the work for you; just keep an eye on her.
If you have a lot of other hens in your coup you may need to move them to allow your Silkie some peace to hatch the new babies. I wouldn’t advise moving Mumma at this stage as it might disrupt her.
Once her babies are hatches and a few days old then you could move her and them to a secluded location away form jealous older birds and cockerels.
(However a coop of only Silkies will not hurt the new arrivals not even the cockerels).
Keep an eye on your Silkie as she hatches her new chicks, but don’t be tempted to “help” your chicks out of their shells.
If they’re not pipping or they’ve pipped but they’re not pecked a out of the shell they’re not ready, leave them! By “helping” you could release a chick too early and without meaning to you could kill it.
If the yolk sac together with the blood vessels have not been fully absorbed into the stomach, the likelihood is that trying to ‘help’ by peeling away the shell will rupture one of these blood vessels and the chick will bleed to death.
Remember – from pip to hatch can take as long as 36 hours.
Let Mumma do the work she knows what she is doing!
Once all the chicks have hatched then you can help by removing old shells.
We once had a Silkie hatch 8 chicks in the dead of winter, we did offer her some help in the beginning by putting in a hot water bottle with her at night, to help keep the babies warm, I’m not sure of this is what you should do but we didn’t loose any and Mumma hen seemed happy with it, otherwise just let her be.
5. What do I feed the new baby chicks.
Put some chick crumb in the cop with Mum when they start to hatch, in a chick feeder, this will be small enough for the chicks to get to, keep feeding Mum her normal grain but in a feeder that’s raised up off the ground so the chicks can’t reach it.
Once they are 4-5 weeks they can move onto a grower or a rearer then at about 20 weeks they can go onto adult food.
Be careful with water, this will need to be in a chick water feeder, if you put a saucer in or anything shallow and open chicks can fall in and drown very easily.
You’re done! You did it, you now have a lovely little clutch of chicks hatched by your very own broody Silkie. Once the chicks are large enough they can go on their own. You will know when this is as your Mummy Silkie will continue to sit on the chicks to keep them at the right temperature until they no longer need her.
We get asked this question nearly every time we have customers come to the small holding. What's the best way to introduce my new Silkie or hen to my existing flock?
In our experience introducing new birds can be a delicate process and can very much depend on the happiness of your flock going forward.
There are 5 simple steps to take to make this 1st encounter go well.
1. We would never advise trying to introduce 1 bird to an existing flock especially if your new bird is quite a bit younger. They will instantly get picked on and ostracised from the existing group. The best way is to buy them in pairs, this way the new birds have an instant ally and are not such an easy target.
2. Make sure you have plenty of room in your run as if there is some hen pecking and territorial bullying there is plenty of room for the birds to run away and escape.
3. Never introduce birds face to face in the cold light of day! This always ends in an argument of some kind.
4. Keep your new birds separate form your flock until night fall. Once your existing flock are sound a sleep in their coop, literally in the dead of night, gently put your new birds in the coop amongst the sleeping flock.
5. In the morning let the birds out into the run and by then they have all night to get used to each others smells and will adjust a lot easier to the idea of new birds in their flock.
Good luck, do let us know how you’ve got on either using this technique or not using it, we'd love your feedback.