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Fowl Tick

Argas persicus[3]

The fowl tick, also called the blue bug, is a soft tick that hides in cracks near chicken roosts by day and climbs onto the birds at night to feed on blood, causing weight loss, blemishes and fewer eggs.[2][1]

Group
Arachnid
Order
Ixodida
Family
Argasidae
Sources
3 cited
Updated
2026-10-17
A cluster of fowl ticks, flat blue-gray soft ticks, on a wooden board
A cluster of fowl ticks, flat blue-gray soft ticks, on a wooden board. Photo: Gabriel Melescanu, public domain (CC0), via iNaturalist
On this page
  1. Identification
  2. Look-alikes
  3. Where it lives
  4. Biology
  5. Damage and signs
  6. Health risk
  7. Control
  8. Related profiles
  9. Common questions
  10. Sources

How to identify it

  • Adults are light reddish brown to dark brown with wrinkled skin and about 6 to 9 mm (0.24 to 0.35 inch) long; as soft ticks they look very different from the hard ticks found on dogs and cats.[1]
  • They hide in cracks and crevices near the roosts during the day, so the best time to find them on birds is at night, when they feed.[2][1]

Look-alikes

Look-alikeHow to tell them apart
Chicken mite (red mite)Also hides in the coop by day and feeds at night, but it is a tiny mite rather than a tick up to about a third of an inch long.[1]

Where it lives

Changes in poultry housing have nearly eliminated it from commercial flocks, but it still turns up in small backyard flocks; UF/IFAS covers it as a poultry pest in Florida.[1][2]

Biology and life cycle

A female lays several batches of eggs, about 25 to 100 or more per batch and 700 or more in her lifetime, and needs a blood meal for each batch; under favorable conditions development from egg to adult takes about 30 days.[2][1]

Larvae stay on the bird for up to five days while feeding; nymphs and adults feed at night, adults engorging in 30 to 45 minutes, and return to their hiding places after each meal.[2][1]

Adults can survive more than a year without a blood meal, so leaving a coop empty for a long time usually won't get rid of them.[1][2]

Damage and signs

  • Feeding causes weight loss, skin blemishes, severe irritation at feeding sites and lower egg production.[2][1]

Health risk

Both sources describe it as a parasite of poultry; neither reports bites on people.[2][1]

Control

Prevention

Use screens and other barriers to keep wild birds and rodents out of the coop.[1]

Sanitation

Sanitation is the best control: remove ticks from their hiding places, eliminate or seal cracks and crevices near the roosts, and clean out litter where ticks hide.[2][1]

Pesticides

Pyrethroid treatments of the poultry house help but aren't completely effective, so getting rid of fowl ticks takes persistent effort; use products labeled for the site.[2][1]

Common questions

What are the flat, wrinkled ticks hiding in my chicken coop?
Flat, wrinkled, reddish-brown soft ticks hiding in cracks near the roosts are fowl ticks.[1][2]
Will leaving my coop empty kill fowl ticks?
Usually not; adults can live more than a year without feeding.[1][2]

Sources

  1. University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension (Animal and Food Sciences), “Common External Parasites of Poultry (ASC-206, J. Jacob and T. Pescatore; revised September 2017).” web.archive.org/web/20241116021457/afs.ca.uky.edu/sites/afs.ca.uky.edu/files/ASC206.pdf (accessed 2026-10-17). Archived copy (Internet Archive, captured 2024-11-16); the original page https://afs.ca.uky.edu/sites/afs.ca.uky.edu/files/ASC206.pdf returns 404 (file removed).
  2. UF/IFAS Extension (EDIS), “External Parasites of Poultry (ENY-290/IG140, P. E. Kaufman; reviewed July 2022).” web.archive.org/web/20251220211336/edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IG140 (accessed 2026-10-17). Archived copy (Internet Archive, captured 2025-12-20); the original page https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IG140 returns 410 Gone (publication retired from EDIS).
  3. iNaturalist, “Argas persicus taxon page (order and family).” www.inaturalist.org/taxa/263516 (accessed 2026-10-06)

Updated 2026-10-17. Built from sourced records. Spot an error? Tell us.