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The variety of “pleasant” fauna that lives on chickens is not limited to ticks alone. It was a shame for other insects to concede such luxurious food resources to only one group of parasites and they also settled in the feather cover. We are talking about insects, which scientists call feather-eaters and lice, and the people are simply chicken lice. In fact, these downy lice have nothing to do with lice and belong to a completely different genus: Mallophaga. Sometimes, by the name of this genus of parasites, they are called mallophages, and the infection of chickens with feather-eaters is called mallophagosis.
It is not possible to find out what chicken lice look like due to the complete absence of this type of insect. Perhaps the point is a very narrow specialization of real lice. Lice species are so specialized that they can parasitize only one or a few host species, enabling scientists to judge the degree of relationship between different species of living organisms. A native of the banking jungle, the chicken, most likely, simply did not have the evolutionary opportunity to acquire its own lice, compensating for this with 17 species of downy eaters.
The main difference between lice and downy eaters is the device of the oral apparatus. The louse has a piercing-sucking mouthpart, while the downy-eater has a gnawing mouthpart.
At the same time, several types of downy-eaters can parasitize on a chicken at once, but their “ranges” do not intersect. Each type of parasite lives in its own area of the body of the chicken.
Downy eaters feed on the upper layers of the skin and feather down. With a significant dominance of parasites, feather-eaters can gnaw the whole feather, leaving only the quill. Different types of feather-eaters look different. The picture shows the five most common types of downy-eaters that parasitize poultry.
Downy-eaters under the letters “b” and “c” without a microscope and at a cursory glance can be confused with a human head louse.
Human head louse.
In this photo taken under a microscope, menacanthus stramineus. Seeing the parasite alive, as in the photo below, many believe that lice appeared in chickens.
Since lice are constantly confused with lice, people have a natural fear of contracting lice.
How does infection occur
Downy-eaters are parasites of a “single host” that spend their entire lives on the same individual. In the same place, the female lays eggs from 1 to 10 pieces per day, depending on the type of parasite. The eggs are attached to the feathers and after 5-20 days the larvae hatch from the eggs. After 2 – 3 weeks, the larvae turn into sexually mature insects.
Transmission of perood from one bird to another occurs through close contact, through objects in the coop or ash and dust baths, which, in theory, should help chickens get rid of parasites. In nature, this would happen, as the chickens would bathe in the dust in different places. With crowded keeping of birds in chicken coops and aviaries, such baths, on the contrary, become breeding grounds for parasites. The feather-eater breeds very quickly and soon up to 10 thousand parasites can lodge on a chicken.
What is dangerous downy
Theoretically, the parasite should not be dangerous, it does not pierce the skin to drink blood, as a louse or a flea do, causing irritation and introducing pathogens directly into the blood. In fact, the feather-eater is no less dangerous than blood-sucking insects. Clinging to the skin with its paws when moving, the feather-eater causes severe itching in the chicken. The chicken tries to scratch itself and gradually pecks itself into the blood, providing infections with free access to the body. The loss of feathers damaged by downy feathers also does not improve the health of chickens.
Symptoms of a downy mildew infection
Chickens are worried, constantly trying to comb themselves, peck at the body. Feathers break and fall out. In place of the fallen feather, bare, inflamed skin remains. Often you can see only bare eyes. If you disassemble the feathers with your hands, you can see small, fast-moving insects. If there is a feeling that someone is crawling over the body, there is no doubt. It’s not a feeling, it’s really crawling. A fluff-eater who decided with the help of a person to move to another chicken.
How to get rid of parasites
In fact, the fight against downy eaters is not only possible, but also quite effective, provided the right tactics are used.
In the comments under the video, a real rally began with a demand to indicate the name of the drug that was used to remove the pereaters. In reality, the name of this particular remedy is completely irrelevant. The drug should be one of those used for the prevention and destruction of ectoparasites: ticks, mites, lice and fleas. Some drugs also destroy worms as a bonus. There are a great many remedies for parasites today and they are produced in almost any form: suspensions, powders, aerosols, in some cases even special “sweets”. But the latter is not for chickens, but for predators.
Depending on the number of livestock, it is possible to treat the bird with an aerosol or powder from Frontline, Bolfo and others.
For a large livestock or in order to save money, you can choose cheaper analogues: Stomazan, Butoks, Neostomazan, Deltsid, Deltamethrin, Ektotsid. It is very difficult to list all the drugs and you will have to choose them, focusing on your wallet and the number of birds in the courtyard.
With a large population, it is more convenient to spray the insecticidal preparation in the form of an aerosol.
Dust, even if you can find this discontinued product, it is better not to use it. As an insecticide, it works very well, but it is unlikely that any chicken breeder needs to hatch ugly chickens from eggs.
Errors in processing from downy
The instructions for most long-acting insecticidal preparations indicate that one treatment is enough to get rid of parasites for a period of 2 to 4 weeks. Therefore, by spraying the chickens once, the owners believe that they got rid of the parasites. In the case of the downer, this is not the case.
First, these drugs only work on insects. The eggs remain unharmed and after a few days, new downy-eaters will come out of the eggs. Therefore, processing must be carried out repeatedly. Processing is carried out at least 3 times with a break of 15 days between procedures.
Secondly, it is not enough to process only chickens. If we are fighting with pered, then we also process the chicken coop, perches and nest boxes.
Processing is also carried out repeatedly.
Thirdly, the surfaces must be treated very carefully, without missing a single slit, since pereeds can avoid the action of the insecticide. The best option would be to treat the chicken coop with a sulfur checker, after removing the chickens from it first.
In the fight against the feather-eater, you should also not rely only on folk remedies in the form of ash-sand baths for chickens. Rescuing one chicken from the down-eater, they plant this parasite on another. The contents of the baths must be changed very often so that the parasites have less chance of getting to the still healthy chicken.
There is also a little trick here. Powder-insecticide can be added to the ash-sand bath. But this is for those who are not afraid of “chemistry”.
The fluff eater has another surprise. Like fleas and ticks and lice, it can go without food for several years. Therefore, even if the treated chickens are moved to a new chicken coop, a thorough pest control must be carried out in the old one.
Conclusion
Fluff-eaters can cause a lot of trouble to chicken owners, but knowing how to deal with them and carefully following the instructions for using the drug and processing chickens and premises, parasites can be stopped before they have spread throughout the private courtyard. With a strong infection of the poultry house with downy-eaters, they can even be brought into the living quarters of the house. Nothing terrible, but unpleasant. Therefore, with the treatment of chickens from downy eaters, one should not pull.