Agggh! Some sort of mite!

[rick]

At the base of the feathers near her vent. Very hard egg clusters. I caught a glimpse of them running around. They don’t look red, sort of skin colour or transparent. I only looked closely because Betty was standing on the high perch and I noticed she had lost a lot of feathers around her rear.

I think I’ve seen something like this in pictures before but thought you folks would probably know what they are straight away.

... looking like lice maybe...

 

[dinosaw]

Looks like lice Rick, see the link below for reference and methods of treatment. Don't know how much they have been dust bathing in this recent bad weather as that and preening is how chickens naturally keep them at bay.

https://poultrykeeper.com/external-problems/lice-on-chickens-and-poultry/

 

[rick]

Thanks dinosaw. Oddly enough, and thinking about it, I think it may have been the dust bath because I chucked in some molehill to make it more interesting about 2 weeks ago. Will dust with diatom first and give the coop a blast out and see our vet at the weekend.
This licensing thing is odd - is that because the insecticide gets into the eggs?

 

[dinosaw]

I think it is more to do with having to spend a load of money testing the product on the animal and jumping through costly hoops before it is granted a license so in the case of chickens it just isn't worth the manufactures effort or certainly hasn't been up to now.

 

[rick]

Right! The longer I keep chickens the more I have realised that the treatments, dietary reccomendations and pretty much everything in published papers is through, and in the interests of, commercial poultry farming where they basically (preferably) live in sterile conditions, max production, and get culled in the cycle so beyond that it doesn't matter. Small scale, pets etc. and the needs of any chicken over a year just don't make it into data. That's why the experience pool on forums like this one is so valuable.
Poor Betty - if that isn't like having ants in your pants I don't know what is!
P.S. I'm not knocking the official reccomendations off hand - Ive mostly got hybrids and they have needs set by their genes where the research is directly applicable. They lay like crazy and can't eat a natural (wild) diet and survive, let alone be healthy.