was petting my tom turkey today and realized that he had little tan bugs crawling on his head. have raised turkeys for years and have never seen anything like this.are these mites of some sort? maybe the fact that i have just been adding shavings to freshen the pens in the barn for two months and not been able to get through all the snow to completely clean out pens, has contributed to this. any home remediy out there? i hate using chemicals. thanks, laura

-- laura cavallari (ladygoat13@aol.com), April 11, 2001

Answers

I sprinkle my pens with food grade Diatomaceous Earth. Periodically, I leave piles of D.E. around for the birds to dust bathe. I also mix D.E. into the feed. My birds have never had mites (and they're also being dewormed). If you leave some piles of D.E. around, the mites will be gone in a day or two.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), April 11, 2001.

Dust the hens with 5% sevin dust. (make a shaker with a mayo jar with holes poked in the top) Also dust their nests.

-- Susan K. Lyons (slyons@pbtcomm.net), October 21, 2001.