Meredith Swett Walker wrote a pretty great article about the perils of backyard poultry.  All about people who promote their livestock to family pet, without considering the consequences.

Funny.  Well written Terrific.  Except for one sentence, where she says not to worry, these pests don’t cross over to humans.

Considering that bedbugs can live on chickens, this is already a problem.

Backyard Chickens Harbor Greater Diversity of Ticks, Mites, and Lice than Farm-raised Chickens

Really hope she reads David George’s article on the plasticity of the D. gallinae genome, and how chicken mites can create medical problems.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25884317

This idea that parasites can’t cross host species lines seems to be one of those memes that won’t go away, like the flat earth.