External parasites in chickens (The red mites):
1. Most of the time mites feed at night.2. One bird can carry an astonishing 500,000 mites while they feed, which usually takes about two hours.
3. One mite can suck up to 5% of a hen’s blood in one night.
4. Mites communicate with members of their colony using pheromones that signal when to return to the crevices in the shed.
5. In the poultry house, they live in crevices of walls and floor, they also live on perches, laying boxes, and on struts. They at times move outside the poultry house, but come back at night.
6. One mite can lay up to 300 eggs.
7.Mites cause stress, reduced production, retarded growth, can spread disease.
Did you know?
Mites can sense that their host has been offlayed.
And they will run immediately and go to crevices.
They can survive in the crevices for many months, even if they aren't fed.
Note: mites only produce when they have fed.
#Advise : for proper eradication of mites from the farm, immediately after offlaying, remove the litter, wash the room, spray the room with acaricide, apply disinfectants, wash and spray all equipment including perches, laying boxes, roof, etc.
Seal off all crevices on the floor and on the wall.
Red mite impact:
A lot of farmers do not realise that red mite can be responsible for a host of production issues such as a sudden egg drop or an increase in mortality and yet it is often overlooked as the primary cause.
Red mite causes stress in birds so birds become very noisy and restless, there can be a production drop of up to 25% and then egg downgrades by blood spots, smears on the eggs.
Birds can become depressed, which causes reduced preening activity, dust bathing and loss of feather cover. The knock-on effect is an increase in feed consumption as the birds feed intakes increase just to sustain body warmth.
Houses with poorly managed floor are more prone to mites resistance. They will have escaping routes.
And once you delay to work on them immediately after offlaying, they will hide where drugs can't reach.
But if you already have them at your farm.
For control, affected birds should be culled or isolated, and houses should be cleaned and sprayed frequently, as recommended for the poultry red mite . Individual birds should be treated with oral or topical ivermectin or moxidectin (0.2 mg/kg), 10% sulphur solution, or 0.5% sodium fluoride.
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