Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[sparkymark]

Hi all,

 

chicken newbie so please excuse the obvious questions:

 

One of our two light sussex chickens (12 wks old) has begun to mount the other - is this a good indication that laying might happen soon?

 

Also, found a few red mites in the Eglu today - what's the best treatment? I heard diatom on the bars/in the crevices is a good idea - do you need to spray the chicks too, and what's best if so?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[xChicken04x]

Hmmmm, not too sure how to answer that question....are they both supposed to be hens? I'd be suspicious of the one mounting, that's generally cockerel behaviour...

At 12 weeks, they are still a bit young, 18+ weeks is when you should start seeing eggs.

 

By the sounds of things, the mites you found are Red Mite. I would take the completely eglu apart, pour boiling water all over it, paying special attention to the nooks and crannies and the roosting bars. Then spray pet disinfectant over everywhere and dust it with red mite powder. Repeat every 1-2 days.

 

 

xx

[Egluntyne]

I'm inclined to agree. Can you post a picture of them?

 

Poultry Shield will help with the mite problem.

[Yolky]

Is your mounting chickens a he chicken? 12 weeks would be a bit early.

 

For the red mite I would power wash the eglu, let it dry in the sun then spray round with poultry shield and when that has dried sprinkle lots of diatomatious earth round, concentrate on nooks and crannies. Also dust the girls really well in diatomaceous earth. You will need to keep this up on a regular basis till the blighters are gone. Also do you have the plastic roosting bars or the wooden? If you have wooden it might be worth buying the plastic ones and burning the infected wooden ones.

[urbanchick]

Having been through the red mite thing lately, my research tells me that diatomaceous earth is the most effective thing to kill it off, whereas red mite powder is just a deterrent. As the red mites don't actually live on the chickens, just feed off them at night, I would dust the hens with powder now to keep the mites away at night, then the diatom will have killed the mites within 2 to 3 days.

 

Definitely get plastic roosting bars....

[sparkymark]

Thanks for the tips all - have ordered diatom and poultry shield, think we caught it early as the few I found haven't come back a few days later after the boliing water trick!

 

We're pretty sure one of them is a cockerel, as he's bigger, more aggressive, red wattles and a large comb, crows a lot and tried that mounting trick at the weekend. We took him/her back to the farmer last week, who said he was definitely a she!

 

Bit confused really, although maybe not as confused as the he/she chicken!

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[Egluntyne]

Can you post a photo of him/her?

 

We are collectively pretty good at spotting a cockerel.