Chickens suffer from external and internal parasites no less than mammals. Interestingly, the varieties of parasites in all animals are practically the same, only the types of parasites differ, often having only one host. For example, a chicken louse cannot be found on a horse, and a horse louse cannot be found on a chicken. The most cosmopolitan in this respect are ticks and bugs, crawling on the heat radiated by a living organism.
Cutaneous parasites in chickens are divided into two large groups: insects and arachnids. The former include down and feather eaters, often called chicken lice, bugs and fleas. Ticks are arachnids. The pest control drugs 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;
- bedbugs;
- downy hair beetles;
- ticks.
Fleas and lice do not actually parasitize chickens, and from bedbugs, the danger is pigeon and bed bugs.
Moreover, each species of mammal is parasitized by its "own" louse. Therefore, there can be no lice on chickens. But non-specialists often confuse feather eaters with lice, guided by the principle "jumps - a flea, does not jump - a louse."
In the photo on the left is a chicken feather, on the right is a head louse parasitizing on humans.
The parasites are similar and, if examined inattentively, can be confused, but the feather is longer and the head is wider than the chest. The opposite is true for lice.
Feathers in chickens
The feather-eaters belong to the Mallophagous squad, while the louse belongs to the Sifunculat squad. The main difference between these two insects is that the louse feeds on blood, biting through the host's skin, and the feather eater only eats feathers. True, this does not make the chicken easier. Moving in the depths of the feather cover of the chicken, and clinging to the feathers and epidermis with its claws, the feather eater 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 feather-eater from a louse. For the rest, the feather looks like a louse, has a body length of 1.5 - 2.5 mm. The color is yellow-brown. Here the difference from the louse is clearly noticeable. A hungry louse of light gray color, drunk with blood - dark brown.
Like the louse, the feather-eater constantly lives on the owner. The female of the parasite for her can lay 20 to 60 nits. Transmission of the parasite from chicken to chicken occurs through direct contact between chickens or by mechanical transfer on staff clothing, care items, rodents and flies.
Symptoms of chicken fever infection
In chickens, feather eaters can be found on the crest and points of feathers, if the feathers are pushed apart.
When infected with a feather-eater, chickens are worried, peck at themselves because of itching. Feathers begin to fall out, inflamed skin remains at the site of fallout. In chickens, growth and development stops, resistance to diseases... The diagnosis is made by finding the parasite on the chicken.If the symptoms of parasite infestation are evident, and the feather eaters cannot be discerned, they use a damp brush to collect the parasites from the skin, shake the brush over a sheet of white paper and examine the collected under a microscope or magnifying glass. When the feather eaters can be collected in a heap, the parasites become clearly visible even with poor eyesight.
Ticks in chickens
Chickens can be attacked by both "ordinary" blood-sucking ticks, whose main concern is to drink blood and multiply in the environment, and subcutaneous ticks, which prefer to live on a chicken. One type of subcutaneous mite infects chicken paws, causing knemidocoptosis.
Knemidocoptosis
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 paws, the disease has received the popular name "calcareous leg". The mite feeds on dead skin scales and lymphatic fluid. Knemidocoptosis cannot be neglected, since in advanced cases, inflammatory processes caused by the vital activity of the tick lead to necrosis of the fingers on the chicken feet affected by the tick.
If a tick is found in a chicken on its feet, it is also necessary to check the rest of the body of the chicken. Ticks can spread under the wings and around the neck.
Chicken mite
Red chicken mite under high magnification.
Gamasid mite, which bears the Latin name Dermanyssus gallinae. In a hungry state, the size of a chicken mite is 3 quarters of a millimeter. The color is grayish.
The blood-drunk chicken mite darkens. Chicken mites are fairly easy to spot on chicken, as chicken mites tend to stick to the skin where blood vessels are 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.
Chicken mite is a carrier of many dangerous infectious diseases of chickens. The dominance of chicken mites causes exhaustion 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 for infection with piroplasmosis. You cannot rip out an ixodid tick. When squeezed, the tick injects into the blood all microscopic parasites that are constantly present in the intestines of the tick. The tick is removed either with a special device or with a drop of oil. Oil trapped on the tick blocks the air supply to the spiracles. Gasping for breath, the tick climbs out by itself.
Bedbugs
Parasites leading a twilight lifestyle and hiding in crevices during the day. Bed bugs feed on the blood of warm-blooded organisms. Female bedbugs can only reproduce after they have drunk their 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 cracks. At the site of bedbug bites, skin irritation and self-shedding can be observed, which chickens inflict on themselves due to itching and pain.
Externally, bedbugs are similar to ticks. Both parasites have a flattened shape, both are brown in color, and both swell from drunk blood. If you do not delve into the intricacies of entomology, parasites can be easily confused with each other.
External parasite control methods
All external parasites can be eradicated with conventional modern pet flea and tick repellents. On chickens, these drugs can also be used, making allowances 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 laying hens is 1.5 kg, the ampoule must be divided into 3 chickens. 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 analogs, 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 against parasites of poultry farms, along with all chickens, are not sold in ordinary stores.
In a series of videos, the author shows how he fights either a chicken mite or a bug. The habits of these two parasites are similar, the methods of struggle are similar. The author himself believes that he is fighting a tick.
How to get rid of chicken mites or bedbugs
The best option to get rid of parasites in the chicken coop room is to throw a sulfur stick there. Sulfur smoke is guaranteed to kill all living things, even in those crevices where fire cannot reach. With the help of a sulfur checker, you can not only carry out pest control, but at the same time disinfection of the chicken coop... Such checkers are inexpensive, but they have a drawback: there should not be any necessary living creatures in the room during the use of the checkers. 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, and not treatment. The most effective of all is a basin of ash, in which chickens bathe, getting rid of ticks and feather eaters. There are often tips on how to get rid of parasites using certain herbs, such as wormwood or tansy. Practice shows that the smell of freshly plucked grass can scare away only fleas, which already do not strive to communicate with chickens. All other parasites will only be glad about 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 poultry houses 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 mollusks while walking in freedom. Chickens can also get infected from each other. Especially, this applies to chickens trying to peck everything.
Ascaris above in the photo can be called the lightest of all types of worms. Getting rid of round worms is easy enough. In theory, 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 are able to kill their host if too many worms accumulate in the intestines.
Symptoms of damage to chickens with worms can be:
- exhaustion;
- yellow diarrhea;
- pale scallop and earrings;
- decrease in egg production in chickens;
- the appearance of eggs with soft shells;
- general weakness;
- loss of appetite or, conversely: increased appetite with progressive exhaustion.
With ascariasis, constipation is an alarming sign; it can be caused by roundworms that have strayed into a ball. In this case, slaughter of the chicken is recommended, since the ball of worms will not come out on its own, and abdominal operations are not performed on chickens.
Chickens, if affected by worms, may fall to their feet due to weakness.
Due to the constant diarrhea caused by parasites, the stained 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 drepanidotheniosis caused by tapeworms.
Drepanidotheniosis
Symptoms: disruption of bowel function; impaired coordination of movements; at the end of the disease, paralysis.
It is much more difficult to get rid of tape worms than from round worms, and garlic is not an assistant here. The danger of tapeworms is that even with the use of sufficiently strong anthelmintic drugs, the worm can throw off its entire body, leaving only the head sucked to the wall of the chicken intestine. From the head of the worm, the segments of the tapered body of the parasite will grow back.
Thus, getting rid of the tape parasite with folk remedies is impossible, but modern drugs, at least, assume 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 save the birds from worms only for a while. Sooner or later, these parasites infect chickens again. However, deworming is necessary to maintain the productivity of chickens.
Due to the fact that broilers have a life span of 2 months, regular deworming for these chickens is irrelevant. It is enough to carry out the treatment for parasites according to the indications. Laying hens need to be dewormed every 4 months, since even non-walking chickens can become infected with worms through contaminated feed or from rats.
After deworming in chickens, all the litter is cleaned, and the floor and, preferably, the walls in the hen house are thoroughly disinfected in order to destroy the eggs of the parasites. Litter and dung are burned.
Conclusion
Worms cause significant economic damage to the breeder, but methods of dealing with them have been worked out. It is much more difficult to cope with a bug and a tick, which are clogged in any crack that is difficult to distinguish with the eye. Without the use of sulfuric smoke, the parasite hideout will surely be overlooked. These parasites multiply very quickly. A few days is enough for the parasite population to recover.
