neighbours flippin mites love my chickens!!! grrr

[dandycandyjellybean]

We keep our birds on our allotment as cannot have them at home (in the house deeds, can't have a pig either!). Next door allotment also has chickens, the guy is also our neighbour and has let us have the allotment we are on free, so I can't say anything to him. But...his coop is absolutely crawling with mites and goodness knows what else. When he collects his eggs he has to shake his arm and brush them off repeatedly it is soo bad. Despite regularly using gold label louse powder every time I clean out the coop, and a few times on the birds, our beautiful ladies are now infested. It's not too bad at the moment, but I would really appreciate advice as to how often to powder, what to use, etc.

It's sad because the worst one is our lovely hypno chick, clucky, named by my 6 yr old ds. She follows you around begging to be cuddled and as soon as you pick her up she dozes off! It was my daily therapy to have a lovely cuddle, but I'm not so keen now she has 'visitors'!

You must buy an Ivermectin spray.

The powders do not work! I lost two birds to parasites and was very angry about it.

Please contact your vet for the spray. There is an egg withdrawal period, but it kills everything - worms as well. It's great stuff. I can't recommend it enough.

Thoroughly clean your coop with bleach or a steam cleaner.

The mites will not live on the birds after the spray because their blood will circulate the Ivermectin and will be toxic to the mites.

Hard as it is you have to tackle your neighbour about it. Perhaps he doesnt realise that it is cruel to leave his chickens infested with mites- an animal health and neglect issue without even thinking about the effect on your poor old girls! suggest that you and he treat the birds at the same time. if all else fails then the council have an animal welfare officer - yes they do deal mainly with dogs but can also deal with chickens too.

OMG those poor birds you have to say something for both the welfare of his birds and yours. I had a bad infestation and once gone the birs were noteicably healthier and egg production increased so there are benefits beyong the birs welfare if he doesnt think thats important!

Hope you can get it sorted.

After some research yesterday we sulphur bombed the coop! And treated the birds with powdered sulphur. Our hypno chick seems better, still a few mites but the lice are gone. We have 2 rangers (one of which is hypno chick) 2 light sussex, 2 speckeldy and 1 amber. We were only going to have 6, but the amber just kept hanging around by the fence whilst we were ages choosing the others, and I just had to take her.

After a thorough inspection of them all, I beleive that it is the Amber that has brought them in, not next door. She is nearly bald underneath her top feathers, and what feathers there are under there are all stunted. After much reading yesterday, I realise that this is probably because she cannot preen properly as her beak was badly clipped when we had her and has not grown back. She can eat and drink, although she tends to stick to the pellets as she cant tackle scraps very well. ANyway, all the others are clear, it is just hypno and snowbelle the amber.

Looked at the ivermectin mm, but only want to use that as a last resort really. Am looking into something called Milbenex which has similar success but no egg withdrawal, have emailed company and will let you know. Thanks all.

Had to have a cuddle with clucky this morning, visitors or no!

Oh and any ideas if there is anything I can give Snowbelle to help with her beak would be kindly received.