Chickens suffer from external and internal parasites no less than mammals. Interestingly, the varieties of parasites in all animals are almost the same, only the types of parasites differ, often having only one host. For example, a chicken lice cannot be found on a horse, and a horse lice cannot be found on a chicken. The most cosmopolitan in this regard are ticks and bedbugs that crawl on the heat radiated by a living organism.
Skin parasites in chickens are divided into two large groups: insects and arachnids. The former include down and feather eaters, often called chicken lice, bed bugs and fleas. Ticks are arachnid organisms. The pesticides are the same, but the life cycle and reproduction methods are different. This makes it difficult to control external parasites in chickens.
External parasites of chickens
External parasites in chickens include:
- fleas;
- lice;
- Bugs;
- down-feather-eaters;
- ticks.
Fleas and lice do not actually parasitize chickens, and pigeon and bed bugs are dangerous from bedbugs.
At the same time, “its own” louse parasitizes on each species of mammal. Therefore, there can be no lice on chickens. But non-specialists often confuse peroedov with lice, guided by the principle “jumping – a flea, not jumping – a louse.”
In the photo on the left is a chicken feather, on the right is a head louse that parasitizes a person.
The parasites are similar and can be confused with inattentive examination, but the feather is longer and the head is wider than the chest. Lice is the opposite.
Pereedy in chickens
Peroyeds belong to the order of mallophages, while the louse belongs to the order of siphunculata. The main difference between these two insects is that the louse feeds on blood, biting through the skin of the host, and the feather eats only feather covers. True, this does not make it easier for the chicken. Moving in the depths of the feather cover of the chicken, and clinging to the feather and epidermis with its claws, the feather causes severe itching. Chickens begin to worry and peck at themselves.
Without a magnifying glass, only a person who can see very small details with the naked eye can immediately distinguish a pered from a louse. For the rest, outwardly, the peroed looks like a louse, has a body length of 1,5 – 2,5 mm. Color yellow-brown. Here the difference from louse is clearly visible. A hungry louse is light gray in color, drunk with blood – dark brown.
Like the louse, the peroyed constantly lives on the host. The female parasite can lay 20 to 60 nits for her. Chicken-to-chicken transmission of the parasite occurs by direct contact between chickens or by mechanical transfer on staff clothing, care items, rodents and flies.
Symptoms of chicken infestation
In chickens, feather-eaters can be found on the crest and feathers of feathers, if the feather covers are pushed apart.
When infected with a pereed, chickens are worried, peck themselves out due to itching. Feathers begin to fall out, inflamed skin remains at the place of loss. In chickens, growth and development stops, resistance to diseases decreases. The diagnosis is established by finding the parasite on the chicken. If the symptoms of a parasite infection are present, but it is not possible to see the parasites, parasites are collected from the skin with a wet brush, the brush is shaken over a sheet of white paper and examined under a microscope or magnifying glass. When peroodov can be collected in a bunch, parasites become clearly visible even with poor eyesight.
Ticks on chickens
Chickens can be attacked by both “ordinary” blood-sucking mites, whose main concern is to drink blood and multiply in the environment, and subcutaneous mites, which prefer to spend their lives on a chicken. One type of subcutaneous mites infects chicken feet, causing knemidokoptosis.
Knemidocoptosis
The scabies mites that settle in chickens under the scales of the paws cause necrosis and raising of the scales on the paws of the chicken. Bumps often develop. Due to the color of the dead scales of chicken feet, the disease has received the popular name “calcareous foot”. The tick feeds on dead skin flakes and lymphatic fluid. Knemidocoptosis cannot be neglected, since in advanced cases, the inflammatory processes caused by the activity of the tick lead to necrosis of the fingers on the chicken feet affected by the tick.
If a tick is found on a chicken’s paws, the rest of the body surface of the chicken should also be checked. Ticks can spread under the wings and on the neck.
chicken mite
Red chicken mite under high magnification.
The gamasid mite, bearing the Latin name Dermanyssus gallinae. In a hungry state, the size of a chicken tick is 3 quarters of a millimeter. The color is greyish.
A blood-drinking chicken tick darkens. The chicken mite is fairly easy to spot on a chicken, as the chicken mite prefers to attach itself to the skin where blood vessels run very close to the surface. In the photo, chicken mites are located on the thin skin around the eyes. Chicken mites can also be found on the chest and legs of chickens.
The chicken tick is a carrier of many dangerous infectious diseases of chickens. The dominance of chicken mites causes malnutrition and anemia in chickens, and also reduces egg production.
If the area is not totally infected with ixodid ticks, there will be no colonies of ixodid ticks on the chicken, but one parasite is enough to infect with piroplasmosis. It is impossible to tear out an ixodid tick. When squeezed, the tick injects into the blood all the microscopic parasites that are constantly present in the intestines of the tick. The tick is removed either with a special tool or with a drop of oil. The oil that has fallen on the tick blocks the access of air to the spiracles. Choking, the tick crawls out by itself.
Bedbugs
Parasites leading a twilight lifestyle and hiding in crevices during the day. Bedbugs feed on the blood of warm-blooded organisms. Female bed bugs can only reproduce after drinking blood. Bed bugs and pigeon bugs are dangerous for domestic chickens.
Bedbugs lead a twilight lifestyle and attack chickens in the evening in the chicken coop, during the day they hide in the cracks. At the site of bedbug bites, skin irritation and self-growth can be observed, which chickens inflict on themselves due to itching and pain.
Outwardly, bedbugs are similar to ticks. Both parasites are flattened, both brown, and both swell with blood they drink. If you do not delve into the subtleties of entomology, parasites are easy to confuse with each other.
Methods of combating external parasites
All external parasites are amenable to destruction with the help of conventional modern flea and tick remedies intended for pets. On chickens, these drugs can also be used, making allowance for the weight of the bird. That is, if the ampoule is intended for a cat weighing 4-5 kg, and the weight of the average layers is 1,5 kg, the ampoule must be divided into 3 hens. But this is subject to a small number of chickens in the courtyard.
If there are a lot of chickens, aerosol spraying is used. Concentrated preparations, such as neostomazan, stomazan, butox and other analogues, are diluted in water according to the instructions and pollinated with this solution of chickens. Similar products are sold at a pet store or veterinary pharmacy. Preparations intended for complete treatment of parasites in poultry farms, along with all chickens, are not sold in ordinary stores.
In a series of videos, the author shows how he fights with either a chicken tick or a bug. The habits of these two parasites are similar, the methods of struggle too. The author himself believes that he is fighting a tick.
How to get rid of chicken mites or bed bugs
The best option to get rid of parasites in the chicken coop is to throw a sulfur checker there. Sulfur smoke is guaranteed to kill all living things, even in those cracks where the fire cannot reach. With the help of a sulfur checker, you can not only carry out disinfestation, but at the same time disinfect the chicken coop. Such checkers are inexpensive, but they have a drawback: there should not be any necessary living creatures during the use of checkers in the room. The chickens will have to be moved to another place for a couple of days.
Folk remedies for treating chickens from external parasites
Folk remedies would be more appropriate to call methods of prevention from infection with parasites, rather than treatment. The most effective of all is a basin of ash, in which chickens bathe, getting rid of ticks and feather-eaters. Often there are tips on how to get rid of parasites with the help of certain herbs, such as wormwood or tansy. Practice shows that the smell of freshly picked grass can only scare away fleas, which do not seek to communicate with chickens anyway. All other parasites will only rejoice at the appearance of such a cozy place for an ambush. Even fleas are not afraid of dried grass. Therefore, the best option would be the systematic treatment of chickens and the poultry house with preparations intended for the destruction of insects.
Internal parasites of chickens
Internal parasites, they are also worms, are divided into three groups: flat, tape and round. Worms are not only those that live in the gastrointestinal tract, but also settle in the liver, lungs and even the circulatory system. The largest of them are intestinal worms. Often these worms can be easily seen with the naked eye.
Chickens become infected with worms, as a rule, eating shellfish when walking in freedom. Chickens can get infected from each other. Especially, this applies to chickens trying to peck at everything.
Ascaris above in the photo can be called the lightest of all types of worms. Getting rid of roundworms is quite simple. Theoretically, even folk remedies in the form of garlic can work, but it is better to use medications. Garlic does not always work against worms, and even roundworms can kill their host if too many worms accumulate in the intestines.
Symptoms of worms in chickens can be:
- exhaustion;
- yellow diarrhea;
- pale comb and earrings;
- decrease in egg production of chickens;
- the appearance of eggs with a soft shell;
- general weakness;
- loss of appetite or, conversely: increased appetite with progressive exhaustion.
With ascariasis, an alarming sign is constipation, it can be caused by roundworms that have strayed into a ball. In this case, the slaughter of a chicken is recommended, since a ball of worms will not come out on its own, and chickens do not perform abdominal operations.
Chickens infested with worms may fall to their feet due to weakness.
Due to the constant diarrhea caused by parasites, the soiled skin around the cloaca becomes inflamed in chickens.
Ascariasis is the most common helminthic disease. Its main danger is intestinal obstruction in chickens. Much more exotic is drepanidoteniosis caused by tapeworms.
Drepanidoteniosis
Symptoms: disruption of the intestines; impaired coordination of movements; paralysis at the end of the disease.
Tapeworms are much more difficult to get rid of than roundworms, and garlic is no help here. The danger of tapeworms is that even with the use of sufficiently strong anthelmintic drugs, the worm can shed its entire body, leaving only the head attached to the wall of the chicken intestine. From the head of the worm, the segments of the tape body of the parasite will grow back.
Thus, getting rid of the tape parasite with folk remedies is impossible, but modern drugs, at least, involve control over the vital activity of the worm.
Do I need to treat chickens from worms, how often and with what drugs
When treating chickens with anthelmintics, the owners relieve the birds of worms only for a while. Sooner or later, these parasites again infect chickens. However, deworming is necessary to keep the hens productive.
For the reason that broilers have a lifespan of 2 months, regular deworming of these chickens is irrelevant. It is enough to carry out treatment from parasites according to indications. Laying hens need to be dewormed every 4 months, as even non-walking chickens can become infected with worms through contaminated feed or from rats.
After deworming, the entire litter is cleaned from the chickens, and the floor and, preferably, the walls in the chicken coop are thoroughly disinfected to destroy parasite eggs. Litter and litter are burned.
Conclusion
Worms cause significant economic damage to the chicken breeder, but methods of dealing with them have been worked out. It is much more difficult to cope with the bug and tick, which are clogged in any crack that is difficult to see with the eye. Without the use of sulfuric smoke, the vermin shelter will most certainly be missed. These parasites reproduce very quickly. A few days is enough to restore the parasite population.