Chicken Care Basics 101

You already know that taking care of your fowl is one of the most crucial things to take into consideration when you intend to raise chickens in your own backyard. If you know how to keep and raise chickens well, you will never ever have any problems feeding your family with healthy chickens and freshly laid eggs right straight from your own garden. Here are the basic chicken pests that will plague your chickens coop that you must be watchful of:

1. Mites.
Scale Leg Types. If you look closely at your chickens' legs and feet, and they will be covered in scales when they should be clean and smooth. These are the scale leg types mites. These leg mites live underneath the scales, causing them to come away. If you see any symptoms of this happening, then, a couple of times a week, you should be dipping your chickens' legs in surgical spirit until the problem clears.

Red Types. The red type mites are the cause of one of the more common chicken problems. dusting your chicken house liberally is highly recommended. You will be able to locate these mites living in the small gaps and openings in a wooden chickens coop. Although they do not inhabit the chicken’s body, they do come out at night, crawl onto the chickens and feed off their blood like most parasites. The effect on the birds is they start looking anaemic and stop laying eggs and their health will drastically go down the slump. These mites are about 1mm in length, are red and very slow moving. There is a powder you can buy over selected veterinarian stores and you can dust your chickens coop liberally to keep these red mites away.

2. Roundworms.
Roundworms are the most typical pests and they will lay their eggs inside the birds' intestines via their droppings. These look like small round balls that stick to the chickens' droppings, then fall to the ground where they go through a period of maturation. They are then picked up by the chickens, resulting in their developing inside the intestines. Gapworms and Hairworms can also cause your chickens problems. It's advisable to carry out a worming program on your chickens, certainly twice a year. Flubenvet mixed into your birds' rations over a week is a good and probably one of the best ways of eradicating parasitical worms, but can be acquired only via a vet's prescription.

Now that you have known the basic pests that may plague your chickens coop, it is up to you to follow this tips and do away with these harmful elements.

By: Jasun Armstrong

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Keeping chickens in a chicken coop can be a fun and rewarding activity. Let Jasun Armstrong teach you how to build a chicken coop and chicken house.