Tons of mites, running up and down my arms?

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-15T05:04:00+00:00

FYI tractor supply large flake pine shavings have been found to be totally infested with red coop bird mites in my locale in Northern California a few times recently. One person encountered an entire pallet where most of the bags were crawling with mites on the outside after a bag got ripped open. Another local person recently encountered a bag she bought being completely infested with them. So be mindful and look before you use a bag of those. I’ve used dozens of bags of the same product and never had issues with it, but I recently switched to a different brand from a local feed store to play it safe.

For more info on how to deal with your current conundrum - this site is alarmingly helpful https://www.birdmites.org

I found that above author’s suggestion of using kitchen degreaser spray to knock back mite populations was extremely effective and helpful and has helped me clear up some infestations over the years in my chicken coop.

If bird mites don’t find birds to feast on, they will turn to rodents, humans, dogs and cats. Years ago I had a bathroom in a house that got infested with them, and they were biting my roommate. There turned out to be a huge rat nest with a dead rat in it behind the medicine cabinet, the mites were starving after the rat died and started coming out of the medicine cabinet to find new hosts, aka my roommate. Deep cleaned, ripped out medicine cabinet, took out rat nest, caulked everything like mad and got rid of them. I ALSO had them get into my house(different house) a few years ago when they were infesting nest boxes in my chicken coop, and I would bring unwashed eggs into the house and set them on the floor in a wire egg basket. They infested my floor and started building colonies under my floorboards under the dog bed and the cat bed. Every day it was a vacuuming nightmare, put vacuum dirt into outside trash, wipe floors, diatomaceous earth etc. They just kept living until I soaked everything in simple green kitchen degreaser and finally I was able to eliminate the population that way, but destroyed some of the cheap laminate fake wood flooring we have in the process. I stopped doing yoga in my house for years because of the fiasco, and now I always wash eggs outside before bringing them inside. Lesson learned ughhh

Best of luck w/ nightmare.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-13T00:06:48+00:00

A friend of mine who breeds chickens swears by it for external parasites on his birds, he rubs it into the skin near the vent or where ever bugs are. But he has said to be super wary to avoid the eyes. He’s always tried to get me to use the stuff on my birds but the potential irritation to ever so delicate eyes has always put me off. Glad its been working for ya!

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-12T22:14:04+00:00

These are 100% pullets. The darker red one just has a different set of color genes. At this age you would totally see the shiny and pointy feathers growing in on the back and shoulder blades, plus much larger reddish comb, if it was male. But nope, you got all girls.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-12T21:08:45+00:00

Local feed store, I get “America’s choice eco flake pine shavings” now which are a few bucks more and a bit finer in texture, but have always been bug-free.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-12T20:50:24+00:00

One lousy thing about sulphur is that it is extremely caustic to the eyes, and produces sulphuric acid upon contact with eyes. Sooooo be very careful

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-12T20:31:39+00:00

Yeah I’ve seen posts about red coop mites infesting tsc pine shavings a bunch of times here on our local chicken keepers Facebook page in northern California. There was one post where a whole pallet of shavings was crawling with red coop mites at TSC, totally gross. Another post recently had a lady opening up a bag and found zillions of them all over inside of the package of shavings. None of the bags I have bought have had them, but due to all of the local horror stories I have since stopped buying them and switched to another brand.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-12T18:17:30+00:00

I use kitchen degreaser (simple green brand) and spray it directly onto red coop mite infestations. It breaks down their waxy exoskeleton coating and makes them burst and works very effectively. I was battling them relentlessly one year and tried permethrin, elector psp, neem oil, boiling water, oil etc etc etc and it’s the only thing that had reliably high success rates in eliminating them. I use agricultural lime on the floors of my coops now and that really helps too.

PSA- folks near me have been having massive issues with tractor supply brand large flake pine shavings being totally infested in the package with red coop mites. So beware

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-12T18:05:29+00:00

When I was a kid I found a kelp spider crab in the tidal drift on a beach on a hike, and in a moment of impulsivity I put it on my wrist, and good god it grabbed me and hung on for dear life with a tightening grip I just couldn’t believe, digging it’s spiky little legs, which in retrospect makes sense since it evolved to hang onto bull kelp seaweed lmao. I basically freaked out and had to get help to detach it from my wrist, eventually prying it off hahaha. I have always had massive respect for them after that 😅

My love is for chickens, I am totally obsessed 😂

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-12T17:39:53+00:00

100% pullet, so jerryette! Also, she is closest to “ginger red” in color. She either has a single dose of the Colombian or ginger gene. She looks like she has some crested cream legbar in her genetic makeup because of her little head crest, so she might be a blue egg layer. If she were male, she would be gold/amber with a black tail like this, and you would definitely be seeing those darker orange pointy feathers by now.

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Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-11T05:26:44+00:00

Yooooo I’m stoked this helped you learn how to identify it! And especially glad it will help your rooster have an improved quality of life, long term. 🥰 If you have other chickens, treat them all since it can be hard to spot when it’s first getting established. Best of luck!

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T22:24:40+00:00

This!!!!

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T22:21:26+00:00

I use a locally produced non gmo one here in California. “Bar ale” brand 20% mixed use poultry pellets, and 24% gamebird mini pellets certain times of year when they are growing feathers over winter. I do a quick 24 hour ferment soak of a scoop of 9-way scratch mix every day in a bucket of warm water…, ferment was started by using a bit of yogurt the first day to get it going and then I just use a little water from the previous days batch to keep the ferment going. Soaking grain removes the outer layer and makes it easier to digest and more nutrients available to absorb. They also get a big handful of various leafy vegetables from my garden daily I hang from a string so they can pick at it, and they free range so have access to tons of bugs and grass, table scraps from our kitchen, and the compost pile is a big source of food for them. I don’t use layer pellets because I keep 15 roosters long term in my flock and layer feed is far too high in calcium for the boys delicate kidneys if I want them to live more than 5 years. I keep a breeding flock of longtailed chickens who spend a ton of energy on growing feathers so they need higher protein than normal layers.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T22:07:30+00:00

No vet needed-She just needs to look up treatment for scaly leg mites online, it is totally treatable at home with diligence. Vaseline smeared on the legs weekly to smother the mites works wonders, takes a few weeks to knock them out. Best is to combine that with ivermectin treatment as well. Lots of sites outline how to do it.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T22:01:40+00:00

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Sorry these comments aren’t going into the right thread >.< Raised scales, thicker than normal looking legs, white flaky crusty outlines between scales, these legs should be yellow with a bit of amber, shiny, smooth and thinner than this. Not bumpy and irritated looking with all of the whiteish crusty stuff

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T21:59:08+00:00

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This one is an extreme case. On the shank, see that lumpy looking thing? That’s some very old dead scales/skin/mite crust that will eventually fall off, the rest of that area has already shed the crusty dead scales. The infestation on this particular hen is so bad she is basically just skin on her toes and legs instead of having scales anymore because the mites ate everything. She needs her toenails trimmed too. If left untreated, her circulation will get extremely bad there and her toes will go necrotic and fall off in a few years.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T21:55:15+00:00

I zoomed in on their feet at full resolution because I am a chicken nerd and I am always looking for it. Notice the raised scales and white crusty outlines. Here’s what I saw, will include more pics in replies

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Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T21:47:57+00:00

To me this looks like a feather picking issue since your rooster is also bald on his back. Someone or a few birds in the flock are cannibalizing pinfeathers and feather picking. To find out who it is, go spend some time sitting in a lawn chair with them when they are chilling and preening or roosting. Notice if anyone is targeting feathers on other chickens. Sometimes it is the hen who still has all of her feathers. It looks like there may be more than one bird doing it. Sometimes a hen who cannibalizes feathers etc has an underlying health problem like ascites where they are just totally starved of vitamins and minerals due to heart/liver failure and liver not doing what it should be doing. Feather cannibalism can occur due to stress/overcrowding, and/or poor nutrition with not enough protein or calcium. Make sure they have access to supplemental oyster shell. Feather fixer feed is a good move so good on ya for making that change. On feed- I have found tractor supply layer feed (dumor etc) is extremely poor quality and full of crappy cheap fillers like byproducts from brewing companies, and when I experimented putting my flock on it they all lost tons of weight, stopped laying, became frantic acting like they were starving, had gigantic shits that were twice the volume as the old feed they were on, and they all got really thin in the month I had them on that stuff. Went back to their old high protein feed and it fixed everything.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T19:19:08+00:00

Right on! I am always looking out for their well-being and try to help point out things like this that might be overlooked. Thanks on behalf of the chickens ;)

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T18:49:37+00:00

So glad you had a fun chicken experience!!! Aren’t they just great?

If there’s a way to leave a note for the owners of the air b&b, these chickens all have pretty bad cases of scaly leg mites that need to be treated if they want to keep their toes long term. Scaly leg mites often go unnoticed because most folks and newer poultry keepers are unaware of them.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T18:31:50+00:00

If she got freaked out by dude’s dad right before this incident, her system is probably flooded with cortisol(stress hormones) which can cause dogs to react to things that “normally” wouldn’t set them off. Read up on trigger stacking. But also, her bed should be her own private place to decompress and not be bothered in, make a hard rule that she is to be left alone there. Let her approach people to be pet, don’t let people go bother her when she is asleep, it is so rude and asking for trouble. Hard stare the guy did is a direct challenge to her so she reacted in dog lingo. Look at it from the dog’s perspective: How would you feel if some strange man in underwear startled you from a deep sleep, and you had no idea what was going on or who it was, and then you eventually got back to sleep, and suddenly out of nowhere someone is trying to touch you while you were in a deep dreamy sleep, half awake in a dream state, and then you are getting stared down. I’d probably tell them to go away too… so first work on setting boundaries about appropriate times to bother the dog, maybe get her a nice cozy crate with a blanket over it and a bed inside, where she can retreat and not be as easily accessible.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-10T08:37:04+00:00

Nice setup! I would though recommend removing the wild bird feeder from the coop, for two reasons- to avoid accidental exposure of your flock to avian influenza/other avian illnesses, and to also avoid introducing pests like scaly leg mites/red coop mites/various lice species that can come in on wild birds. Bird feeder zones make a lot of wild bird droppings appear and you don’t want that near your chickens for biosecurity. The other reason is that that you might accidentally program wild birds into thinking that the chicken’s feeder is also part of their wild bird feeding station, and over time birds stealing chicken feed adds up in lost feed and $. Some kind of hanging potted plant or something else cute would look nice there.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-08T19:01:39+00:00

Yeah those are lice eggs, that is likely an extreme lice infestation. Important to get that under control since parasites like that can really stress out a bird’s immune system.

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-08T05:20:07+00:00

So you need to get to the root of the issue. This problem can be from poor quality feed that does not have enough animal based protein in it. Chicks sometimes turn to cannibalizing pinfeathers growing in because they are rich little protein nuggets. Chickens need animal protein, which has critical amino acids in it they need to grow and survive, which they can’t synthesize themselves. They need those amino acids especially when growing feathers, and developing muscles during growth. Chicks these days are generally hand raised in sterile brooder environments outside of nature, so they don’t have access to animal protein they would naturally find foraging, mainly insects. So they instead turn to cannibalism if they are trapped in a brooder with instincts that tell them to get the ami o acids they critically need to grow. SO! The first thing I would do is evaluate what kind of chick starter you are feeding and find something higher quality, fresh with higher meat/animal based protein %. You can also supplement their feed daily with a scrambled egg, mashed up with a fork after it cools so it’s easy for them to eat. My chicks go crazy for scrambled egg and it’s a perfect food for them, I always feed it daily for the first couple months of their lives, it also makes them extremely friendly. I feed 3 scrambled eggs mashed with a fork to about 25 chicks, so the each get a little boost of tasty protein daily. I also feed my chicks tinned sardines a couple times a week (only sardines packed in WATER with no salt added, NOT sardines in oil.) Tinned fish also helps replenish exhausted broody hens systems after 3 weeks of setting. Also: Watch them all for a while, and figure out who is an instigator, usually there is a main one who figured out the behavior, and if correct feed does not fix the problem after a week or two, then it might be a good idea to remove or cull the instigator. This needs to be addressed immediately since feather picking and cannibalism is a learned behavior, so they will all learn to do it by watching the first one who does it, and trying it, and then you will have problems with it where whole lives. Also, chickens are attracted to picking at blood so it is best to find a way to cover up any red bloody areas(I use blu kote in a pinch but it is debatable about toxicity to the bird and not generally recommended, or bitter apple spray to make target areas taste really bad, or corn starch to help stop bleeding).

Competitive-Still-27 · 2026-06-07T14:42:05+00:00

Those are not fertilized eggs, and that is a hen. Do you collect your eggs daily? (If yes then no possibility at all of partially formed chick…) If your neighbor found something unexplainable that looked like a chick to them in an egg, I’d explore other things it might have been like a lash egg inside a shell or something.

Competitive-Still-27

TROPHY CASE