Pale combs, grimy vent feathers, hens that suddenly won't go in to roost at night, and egg production falling off a cliff. Something is feeding on your flock after dark, and the birds have been putting up with it a lot longer than you've known about it. It is fixable — the reason it usually isn't is that people treat the birds and never the coop, or skip the second round.
Free Estimate — Call or Text 717-379-3248They're all tiny, they're all miserable for the birds, and they're not treated the same way — because they don't live in the same place.
Lives its whole life on the bird, concentrated around the vent. Look for dirty, greasy-looking vent feathers with clumps of mite debris. The most common mite in PA flocks, active year-round, and hard on lay rates — heavy loads genuinely drain birds.
The night-shift vampire: hides in coop cracks, roost-bar joints, and nest-box seams by day and feeds on sleeping birds by night. Check with a flashlight after dark or wipe a white paper towel under the roost — red smears mean mites. Because it lives in the housing, treating only the birds does nothing.
Fast-moving straw-colored insects at the feather base, with white egg clusters glued near the vent and under wings. More irritation than anemia, but heavy loads stress birds, hurt lay, and spread through a flock quickly.
On-bird check (vent area, feather base) plus a housing inspection. Which pest and where it lives sets the whole plan.
Red mites demand housing treatment — cracks, roosts, nest boxes; fowl mites and lice demand on-bird treatment. Most failed DIY jobs treated one and not the other.
No product kills eggs waiting to hatch. Follow-up applications 7–10 days apart catch the next generation before it lays — skip the repeat and you've rented relief, not bought control.
Laying flocks restrict which products are legal and how they're used. As licensed applicators we follow label rules written for food-producing birds — worth knowing before anyone sprays your breakfast supply with something from the garage shelf.
Wild birds are the delivery service for mites — screening coop gaps, managing sparrow nests, quarantining new birds, and keeping dust-bath areas dry all lower the odds of a rerun. Practical advice included with every job.
Poultry work pairs with our agricultural pest service — fly control, rodent exclusion around feed, and livestock parasite work on the same visit.
We serve flocks in Dauphin, Cumberland, Lebanon, Perry, and York Counties — including:
Harrisburg, Paxtang, Penbrook, Steelton, Highspire, Middletown, Hummelstown, Hershey, Palmyra, Annville, Cleona, Lebanon, Grantville, Linglestown, Colonial Park, Susquehanna Township, Lower Paxton, Camp Hill, Mechanicsburg, Lemoyne, New Cumberland, Wormleysburg, Enola, Marysville, Halifax, Millersburg, Elizabethtown, Mount Joy, Mount Wolf, Manchester, Dillsburg, Carlisle, Boiling Springs, and surrounding Central PA communities.
Backyard coops to small commercial flocks — free estimates across Harrisburg and Central PA.
Call or Text 717-379-3248