Fowl Tick (Tampan) in Ghana Poultry: Risks & Control

What you see in an old shed at eleven at night

Go into an old shed after dark with a torch and the wall can look like it is moving. Fowl ticks come out of the cracks once the house is quiet, and they run for the nearest bird or the nearest warm surface. Shine the torch along the joint between the wall and the roof sheet, and you may see flat, greyish bodies that look like small seeds or wrinkled beans. That is the usual first sight for a farmer who has never looked at night before.

Most people only learn about fowl ticks when the birds start to look wrong. The birds are quiet and sitting in the day, then restless and calling at night, and the comb turns pale over a few weeks. By then the ticks have had months to build up in the cracks, and a quick clean-out will not reach all of them.

A soft tick with a slow, patient life

Many farmers simply call it the tampan, and that is the name you will hear in most poultry yards. The fowl tick, Argas persicus, belongs to the soft tick family. Our mites and lice guide covers the other pests that share the same house. Unlike the hard ticks that dogs pick up in the bush, it does not stay attached for days. It climbs onto a bird at night, takes a blood meal that usually lasts well under an hour, and drops back into a crack before the bird wakes properly. The bird may never notice the bite, but it loses blood each time.

The life cycle has several stages. A female lays her eggs in small batches in crevices, nest material and litter corners over a period of time. The larvae hatch, feed once, and moult into nymphs. Each nymph stage needs another blood meal before it moults again, and only then does it become an adult. The whole process takes weeks to months depending on the temperature and how often the nymphs get a meal. Adults can go many months without feeding, which is the reason an empty house can still hold ticks.

What the birds show when ticks are feeding

Fowl ticks do not usually produce one dramatic sign. They take a little blood at a time, from many birds, over many nights. The first changes are behavioural. Birds that were settled on the perch start to shuffle and call, and they wake and move around in the dark. In the morning they look tired and do not feed as quickly.

• Pale comb and wattles, which build up slowly over several weeks.
• A drop in weight or slow growth in young birds, even when the feed is good.
• A fall in egg output in layers, with eggs that are smaller or fewer over a few days.
• Small blood spots on the bedding, the walls near the perch, or the eggshells.
• Grey, bloated ticks found on the birds after they have fed, or on the wood where the birds roost.
• In young birds, weakness, huddling and deaths that do not match any other obvious cause.

A bird with several of these signs at once should be examined by a vet rather than treated on guesswork.

A night search that finds the ticks

A proper search takes about twenty minutes and is best done on a warm night, when the ticks are active. Use a bright torch, a flat scraper or old knife, and a bucket of hot soapy water to dip your tools. Walk the house slowly, because the ticks move in a short run and then stop in a crack.

1. Switch off the main lights and wait five minutes so that the ticks come out of the cracks.
2. Walk the wall, the roof joints, the perch supports and the corners where the nest boxes meet the wall.
3. Shine the torch low and at an angle to show the bodies in the cracks, then count the ticks you see in a metre of wall.
4. Lift one nest box or perch at a time and look underneath, where ticks like to shelter.
5. Collect any ticks you can with the scraper and drop them into the hot water, which kills them.
6. Write down the wall, the corner and the count, so you can compare the next search.

Do the search on a few nights in a row. A single night often finds only the ticks that were out feeding at that moment.

Where ticks hide and how to reach each place

Fowl ticks are patient hiders, and most of the work is reaching the places a broom never touches. The table below lists the common shelters we see in Ghanaian houses and what each one needs.

If a place cannot be scraped or sealed, it needs a treatment your vet has approved for that surface, applied when the birds are out of the house.

Why an empty house can still be full of ticks

Many farmers believe that a house with no birds is a house with no ticks. In Ghana that belief is often wrong. A fowl tick can survive for many months in the cracks of a wooden or mud house, and the dry harmattan months only give it a safe place to wait. A house that sat empty for a season may have a population waiting in the walls, ready to feed on the first birds that come in.

So an empty house needs the same search and treatment as a house with birds. Our cleaning guide between batches gives the order of work we follow. Clean the litter out, scrape the walls and the nest areas, treat the crevices with a vet-approved product and leave the house airing for the time the label gives. Only then should new birds go in. Restocking into an untreated house is the most common way we see ticks come back within a few weeks.

Tick-borne infections: what to ask your vet about

Fowl ticks are not only a nuisance. The fowl tick can carry organisms that cause disease in chickens, including the bacterium behind fowl spirochaetosis and a blood parasite that the vet may test for. These infections can cause fever, depression, pale birds, green droppings and sudden deaths, and they can look like other diseases that a farmer might not think of first.

Our common chick diseases guide lists the look-alikes your vet will weigh up. Tell your vet about the tick history, the crevices you found and the signs in the birds. Ask whether a blood sample or a post-mortem examination would help. Do not guess the cause and treat the flock with whatever you have in the store, because the wrong treatment costs you time and can hide the real problem.

Treating the house, not only the birds

Fowl ticks are mostly in the house, so treatment has to reach the house. Birds can be treated for ticks on the vet's advice, but the crevices are where the population lives. A sensible plan treats the building in one session, when the birds are out, then follows up on the timing your vet recommends.

Move the birds to a clean, ventilated pen before you treat the house, and keep chicks away from the area until the surfaces are dry and the label says it is safe. Spray or dust the cracks, the joints, the perch supports and the nest areas, not only the open floor. Treat the walls up to the roof line where birds perch and where ticks climb. Follow the product label and your vet's instructions for dilution, coverage and the waiting time before birds return. Our guide to disinfectants and footbaths explains how cleaning agents differ from the treatments your vet will recommend for ticks. Keep a record of the date, the house and the product, and set a reminder for the follow-up visit to the same cracks.

• Never mix products or make the solution stronger to get faster results.
• Keep eggs away from treated areas and follow the withdrawal period on the label.
• Wear gloves, a mask and long sleeves when you spray, and wash your hands after each session.

Sealing mud walls and wooden frames for the long run

Ticks use the same gaps every season, so a one-time spray is not enough. Mud walls crack as they dry in the harmattan and crack again when the rains soak them. Wooden frames shrink, leaving slots between the boards and the posts. Each of those cracks is a home for the next generation.

Scrape the loose mud, fill the joints with a fresh plaster, and let it dry fully before you treat the surface. Nail or screw the boards tight and fill any split wood. Where possible, put a smooth, painted or sealed surface on the wall where the birds perch, because a smooth surface gives ticks fewer hiding places. None of this is glamorous work, but a house that is sealed once is much easier to keep clear than a house you clean again every time the ticks return.

Keeping ticks out when new birds and equipment arrive

Ticks come into a farm on birds, on people and on equipment. Birds from a village flock may already carry a tick population in their housing, and the ticks can ride into your house on the bird's body or in its crate. Used crates, sacks and boxes are another route, especially if they were stored in a dirty shed before they reached you.

Keep newly bought adult birds apart from the house for a while and check them at night before they join the flock. Inspect used crates and sacks before they enter the store, and brush out any corner where a tick could sit. Chicks from a clean hatchery start life in clean boxes, but the ticks can still arrive later in the same way, so the checks never stop at the day you collect the chicks. Our biosecurity guide sets out the routine for visitors, crates and vehicles, and the quarantine guide for new birds covers the separate pen.

Once the house is clean and dry, agree a delivery day on WhatsApp at +233 24 915 1503, then confirm it through the order form on the home page. Ask for a firm date so the house has time to air first.

What a tick problem costs a small house

Run the sum for a small house and the cost becomes clear. Take 100 Sasso chicks at GH₵13 each (see our Sasso day-old chicks page and the current price list), which is GH₵1,300 in chicks before any feed. Suppose the ticks cause a slow, unnoticed drain: six birds die over a season from anaemia and weakness that the farmer blames on the weather. At GH₵13 each, that is GH₵78 in chicks alone, before you count the feed those six birds ate, the labour to nurse them and the eggs that were never laid.

The bigger cost usually shows up in layers. If a laying house drops by a few eggs a day for three weeks while the farmer searches for the cause, the lost sales can be larger than the chicks. The figures are a sketch, not a record from any farm, but they show why a cheap search at night pays off early.

A practical checklist for fowl ticks

Print this list and tape it inside the house door. It covers what we would walk through with a farmer after a tick report. More questions are answered on our FAQ page.

1. Search the house at night on three separate nights, and count the ticks you see on a metre of wall.
2. Check the nest box corners, perch supports and the joints between wall and roof.
3. Remove all nesting material and litter from the search area before treatment.
4. Scrape and fill the cracks, and let the surfaces dry fully.
5. Ask your vet for a treatment approved for poultry houses, and follow the label.
6. Keep birds in a clean pen during treatment and until the waiting time has passed.
7. Repeat the search and treatment when your vet says to.
8. Inspect sacks, crates and new birds before they enter the house.
9. Do not restock an empty house until the search has come back clear.

When a tick problem has become a vet case

Call your vet promptly if birds are dying, if a flock runs a fever, or if the egg count falls sharply after you have already searched and treated the house. Ticks alone rarely kill a healthy flock quickly, so sudden deaths or a high fever suggest a second problem that needs proper diagnosis.

If you are unsure whether the signs come from ticks, mites, anaemia from worms or a viral disease, bring a photo of the crevices and a few ticks in a closed container to the vet. Our guide on treating a sick chicken explains what to note before the vet arrives. Good samples and a clear history save the vet time and save you money on the wrong treatment.

Questions farmers ask