Chicken Chatter Northern Fowl Mites
Tips for Flock Health
Northern Fowl Mite Alert
By Dr. Brigid McCrea
One of the most often overlooked aspects of keeping chickens is dealing with external parasites. Nobody likes thinking about bugs crawling all over their chickens’ skin. All too often, external parasites invade a flock and then quickly spread. One of the common external parasites is the northern fowl mite, which affects small flocks as much as commercial operations.
Mites are small, wingless and in the same family as spiders because they have eight legs. They are blood-sucking insects found on chickens during the day and at night. They are red to black and are visible without magnification.
Do My Birds Have Them?
A heavy infestation of these mites can make the feathers significantly below the vent look dirty. The mites cause scabs around the vent’ s skin and can also affect the skin below the vent.
An accumulation of dried blood and mite feces darkens the feathers. Your birds will also begin grooming excessively. This is because the insects crawling on their skin make them uncomfortable.
You may see them fiddling with the feathers below their vent or in other locations on their bodies that have accumulated the parasites.
Lastly, you will see a decrease in feather quality. Feathers will lose their luster and look tattered, with small chunks missing from the ends. Additionally, you will begin to see the luster of the feathers fade due to all the activity the bird is doing with preening.
How to Identify Northern Fowl Mites
Your first clue that you have northern fowl mites is that they are found on the birds during the day versus the poultry red mite, which tends to crawl at night. You will want to pick up your chickens and look carefully at the feathers around the vent. Since the feathers below the vent tend to be thicker, you will likely find external parasites in this location first.
24 AcreageLife October 2024 AcreageLife. com