How to Treat Poultry Ticks

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Realizing that you’ve got a poultry tick infestation can cause lots of worry, but if you act quickly and methodically, you can eliminate the ticks before they cause serious harm to your flock. Keep reading to learn what you need to do to get rid of these potentially dangerous pests.

Clean, Seal, and Treat the Hen House

In the case of poultry ticks, also commonly known as blue bugs, it’s much more effective to treat chicken coops than it is to treat the birds. The reason is that fowl ticks don’t spend their days on your hens. Instead, they hide in the hen house during when it’s light out, feeding on your birds only at night.

RELATED READING: How to Identify Poultry Ticks

Vacuum Out and Destroy All Debris

Depending on the severity of your tick infestation, you may have thousands of these bugs hiding in the cracks and crevices of your hen house. Because you could be dealing with so many ticks — and because they’re so sneaky and insidious — it’s best to contain and destroy them so as not to give them an opportunity to repopulate the coop.

To do this, you’ll need to use a shop vac with a disposable bag and a burn barrel. If burning is not possible, you’ll need heavy-duty trash bags instead.

To start, empty your coop of all bedding in the nesting boxes and any other debris. If possible, burn the bedding — this is the best way to destroy ticks so they don’t make their way back onto your chickens. If you can’t burn, seal the bedding tightly inside of a trash bag for later disposal.

Next, use your shop vac to suck up smaller debris, which will also include ticks. Go over the entire coop carefully, paying special attention to the cracks where boards come together and crevices in the wood.

Once you’ve finished vacuuming the hen house, burn the disposable bag containing the debris and ticks. Again, if you can’t burn, place the shop vac bag inside of a heavy-duty trash bag and seal tightly.

Pressure Wash Every Surface

Because vacuuming alone won’t catch every tick inside the hen house, next move on to pressure washing. The high-speed jet of water from this process will easily dislodge ticks and their eggs from their hiding places.

As with the vacuuming, pressure wash every inch of the coop as ticks can be hiding anywhere.

Seal Cracks with Caulk

Probably the most important step of treating tick infestations is taking away their ability to hide in your hen house. Fowl ticks thrive in the coop because it offers protection — the parasites don’t have to worry about predators or drying out, and an adult female can lay her eggs without being disturbed.

To make it harder for ticks to hide out, you need to seal every crevice in the coop. Use an outdoor-rated caulk that’s waterproof (this one is a great deal), and be sure to pick up lots as you’ll likely go through it fairly quickly.

When we say that you need to seal off every crack, we mean it — don’t allow a single nook, cranny, or seam to remain.

Apply a Coat of Paint

Applying a thick coat of paint to the chicken coop after caulking is a great way to add an extra layer of protection. Paint will further seal those areas you’ve caulked, plus it will fill in any hairline cracks you may have missed.

When choosing a paint, be sure to choose a high-quality formula that’s washable and suitable for outdoor use.

Spray a Natural Tick Killer

Despite your best efforts, there are likely to be at least a few ticks that escape the cleaning process. Because these pests can wander back into the coop, you need to treat the hen house with an all-natural tick-killing spray.

While there are many essential oils that do a very good job of repelling ticks and other insects (like ants and spiders), there’s one in particular that’s effective at actually killing ticks on contact: orange peel oil.

There are several ways you can obtain the orange-peel-oil insecticide you need to kill ticks:

• You can purchase a ready-made product like Orange Guard
• You can purchase orange peel oil or concentrated D-Limonene to mix with water
• You can make your orange peel oil and water mixture

If you choose the ready-made route, follow the directions on the container for usage instructions.

If you purchase orange peel oil or D-Limonene, you’ll make your spray by mixing two ounces of the oil with a gallon of water.

If you decide you’d like to make your own tick-killing spray from scratch, follow these directions:

• Peel a bag of oranges, reserving the fruit for later use and putting the peels in an empty pot
• Fill the pot with enough water to just cover the orange peels
• Bring the pot to a boil, and then lower the heat to simmer
• Simmer the peels for 10 minutes, and then shut off the heat
• Let the orange peel mixture cool completely, and then strain the liquid into a container
• Use the orange peel mixture at full strength for tick control

Once you’ve got your natural insecticide, thoroughly spray your coop. Concentrate your efforts around the roost as this is where ticks will return for easy access to your chickens when they’re sleeping.

Treat Your Chickens with Diatomaceous Earth

Treating backyard chickens for tick infestations isn’t usually effective because these blood-thirsty bugs only feed at night. However, as tick larvae do remain on birds for several days before falling off to hide in the hen house, treating your poultry directly is not entirely fruitless.

A safe and easy way to treat poultry for ticks is to use diatomaceous earth (we use this one). This fine powder is harmless to chickens so long as you keep it out of their eyes, but each particle is like a shard of glass to ticks, slicing through their bodies.

To treat your chickens, apply DE to the skin under their feathers along their back and under their wings. Repeat the treatment every other day until you’ve confirmed that the tick population has been eradicated.

RELATED READING: How to Treat Poultry Lice

FAQs

Even though guinea hens and other hungry chickens eat ticks, these external parasites can cause a host of problems if they infest the hen house. In addition to spreading diseases like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, these bugs can cause your hens to lose weight and develop anemia.

Fowl ticks (argas persicus) are actually just one type of tick that can infest your chickens. Lone Star ticks, deer ticks, dog ticks, and others will not pass up hopping aboard your bird.

Because chicken ticks feed on your birds at night, you won’t see them during the day. Instead, you’ll have to look for symptoms in your hens that indicate that they’re being plagued by ticks. Here some of the signs you may notice:

• Weight loss
• Reduced egg production
• Pale comb and wattle
• Red spots or irritation, especially under the wings
• Damaged, loose, and missing feathers
• Hesitance to roost in the coop at night

Taking care of a tick problem quickly is essential for disease control in both chickens and humans.

Tick populations are typically introduced to chickens through wild birds, rodents, and other animals — even pets can pass them to poultry. The parasites are most active in the summer months, but if you live in a region that doesn’t see freezing temperatures, you could deal with them year-round. Because these bugs can strike at nearly any time, it’s important that you practice good tick control measures throughout the year.

RELATED READING: How to Prevent Poultry Ticks