Always be suspicious of a chicken with a pink bottom... or vent, a term Is and Ri have grown to love. Upon noticing Chloe's pink bottom yesterday morning, after checking the chickens' food and water, I picked up Chloe and flipped her, bottom up, to see what's going on. Now, I'm not going to go into great detail, because I do think, fairly certainly, that I will always remember what I saw under Chloe's feathers.
Let's just say that I now know how to identify mites and lice on chickens. Gag. Greg and I both know how to strip a coop, spray it, and treat it. Thanks to backyardchickens.com and youtube.com I know how to powder a chicken, by hanging it upside down by the feet and dust it with garden dust for bugs, working it into the feathers - being sure to get the dust around the vent, in the armpits, and by the comb but not the eyes... Greg knows how to make an indoor dust bath box so that the ladies can still get their dust bathes, because if they don't it can contribute to the acquirement of many, many mites/lice... Who knew?
So, after what seems like six months of rain, it's no wonder the girls have bugs. We've all been cooped up so much we probably all have bugs.
And further more...who knew chickens had armpits?
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