Exactly how do you dust a chicken for lice?

ChezPoulez said:

I just googled how to dust a chicken and found this old thread. One of my Silkies is infested with lice or mites or whatever, all I know is that she's looking thin, terrible, and is covered with bugs. I am sooo creeped out. I've had chickens for decades when living in the country and NEVER had bugs on my birds. I think it's just another kind of vermin running amok in the city. I bought the Poultry Dust w/ Permethrin, but being here alone, I wasn't quite sure how to go about dusting her by myself.

I first gave her a good bath to wash off as many as I could. Then when she was dry I dusted. I took a tall plastic dry dog food container type bin, put about a cup of dust in the bottom, and then lowered the chicken into the bin. It's too narrow for her to open her wings all the way to flap and make a dust storm, and it's too tall for her to jump out. With a gloved hand I scooped dust from the bottom and rubbed it into her belly and vent area. Then I dusted her back and neck. I tipped the bin at an angle to grab her and roll her to her back to dust the undersides of her wings. Because she was looking so bad today I kept her in a pet carrier overnight in the house with a big dish of treats and water. By keeping her confined overnight I'm hoping it is also keeping her from shaking off any excess dust so hopefully all those little bugs will be dead by morning. I noticed that after I removed her from the dusting bin that there were MANY visible, dead bugs in the dust. I'm going to keep the dust in the bin with a lid on top so it's handy and ready to go anytime I need to dust. Tomorrow I'll be dusting the rest of the flock. I had just cleaned the coop and put down a pretty thick layer of DE on the floor and under the fresh bedding in the nests, so dusting the girls should wipe out any bugs. There's stll the issue of breathing the dust that I haven't been able to avoid, but at least the chicken is getting thoroughly coated and there's no wasted powder on the ground. I think I did okay for having to do this alone.

I love the idea of making a dusting bag too, but it sounds like one of those things that looks better on paper than in application. I suspect the bag method is at LEAST a two person job too. 

QUESTION: When I lived in the country, we heated with wood, so always had plenty of wood ash. There was one spot in the chicken yard where I dumped the ash that became the girls' favorite dusting spot. I was told that wood ash would prevent any bugs. I don't know if that was an old wives' tale or not, but I never had any bugs. So... have any of you heard this too, and do you use wood ash in the dust bath areas for your girls? 

Click to expand...