Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

So first off, thanks for everyone's patients. I feel like I'm a crazy chicken hypochondriac lady with all my questions lol.

Last night I go to tuck my ladies in and I notice my super peppy polish isn't so super peppy. She let me pet her without budging. She's affectionate on her own terms, but not like that. Anyway, naturally, I mentally freak out and the whole world ends as I can see the her knocking on deaths door (oh the drama, but keep in mind that I lost a 5 week old chick a week ago and I'm paranoid). Anyway, symptoms are as follows: spends 90% in the coop. I hear a lot of scraping sounds coming from it but not the scratching for food kind. Almost like shes trying to dig or beak scratch through the wood . Very odd. Appetite is poor. I saw about 5 or 6 browny red mites by her vent but nowhere else on her unless they hide very well. So I dusted the heck out of her with DE. She's drinking a little here and there but not too interested in food. I gave her boiled egg and she only ate a bit (and this chicken would normally run away to a deserted island with boiled eggs if she could). She ed a lot of dark green semi solid stuff sometime during the early morning. Her mouth is also slightly open but not stretching neck or anything crazy. Any ideas? Also, she popped out an egg yesterday for the first time since last summer. There are no eggs in the coop. And even as I type this is can still hear her scraping away in the coop.

Also, is coming out to the 22 sunny weather but only for a bit and then goes back up. I have two gals who lay so I know the nature of layers but this feels different. Felt her crop at 8 am this morning and it felt squishy with gritty like stuff in it. Normal?

can you peek into the coop and see if she is trying to dust in the bedding? or see exactly what she's doing digging around? it does not sound broody to me at all....most like something bugging her and sick, maybe looking for a place to hide or get away.

I would go and get some livestock dusting powder (carbaryl) from your feed store and dust her with that. DE is a great preventative, but will not treat an active infection of mites. if you see 5 mites, she probably has a fairly heavy load of mites. The dusting powder will kill them on contact. then either dust her again in 3 days, or put about 1 ml of pour on ivermectin on her to kill anything else that hatches and then check her again in 10 days for mites. She may be scraping around inside the litter in the coop trying to dust bath to get the mites off. mites will turn her anemic if there are lots of them, they drink blood, and that could put her off food-because she's miserable. the green runny is because she isn't eating.

Does the gritty stuff feel like little stones or rocks? if so that's okay, she's eating grit. i would get her separated for now, where you can monitor her food intake, and make sure she's eating something-anything, hard boiled egg, cooked rice, pelleted feed, yogurt, sunflower seeds and try with some electrolytes or super booster in her water if you have some in case she isn't drinking much either.

oh, and if she has mites, the others will too...you'll probably want to treat them all for mites. they're an ongoing thing with chickens. if you treat just her, they'll get off the other chickens and come right back onto her.

I will head out to find that Carbaryl. I'll be ticked if I can't find it but, sadly, not surprised. TSC didn't even have DE; had to go elsewhere to find it.

She's out of the coop now and passed an egg, so I'm hoping that a sign that she's not too far gone. If it is indeed mites, how long after the Carbaryl kicks in will I notice her behavior returning to normal? Can mites really make a bird act like this?

They won't sell to me without registering my farm. I don't have a farm. So she told me to buy cat tic powder with Carbaryl in it and it would be fine. Hmm..... thoughts?

What you are looking for is 5% Carbaryl dust.

Perfect! I'm off to find a cat flea powder then. I happened to find one store owner that has Permethrin spray that says he can sell it to me within a license. Do you think that could be safe? In case I can't find appropriate flea powder

Ladychicken wrote:QR_BBPOST Perfect! I'm off to find a cat flea powder then. I happened to find one store owner that has Permethrin spray that says he can sell it to me within a license. Do you think that could be safe? In case I can't find appropriate flea powder

It Will be fine for chickens, permethrin is toxic to cats at high doses so be careful not to get it all over.

Yep...just dont get the permithrin in her eyes/mouth. Wow...i can get dusting powder at my feed store and just sign a waiver its for farm use....but i am not buying at tsc.

Yes-mites can knock a chicken back quite quickly if there are lots of them. Some chickens seem to attract them worse than others-sort of like some people attract mosquitos more than others....