Old log coop, dirt floor, straw attic… mite/lice control?

[cricketbug63]

Hi all!
I’m a long time lurker, and I know there are lots of similar posts but I haven’t seen any that *quite* match my situation. Please bear with me if I give too much information!

I recently had a young chick pass away. She’s not the first to die, it happens once in a while, but I’d brought her in because we noticed she was limping and lagging behind her momma. I checked for injuries, gave vitamins, splinted the leg and ultimately held her while she passed away. Then I noticed she was absolutely swarming with tiny grey bugs (they literally didn’t come off her til she died and then it was a mass exodus of them!). Poor baby!! I also noticed that my Roos have really red skin on their legs, and then hens aren’t really laying much. Their poops range from light brown to brown and white, not frothy. A couple have dark purple edges to their combs but none are pale anymore. They get oyster shell, pellets, scratch, cracked corn, chick starter, and have free range of the whole property (they use about 3 acres of it) and enjoy foraging. We do have wild turkeys that literally nothing can deter.

I know I’ve got mites or lice for sure. Alright. So now to clean the coop!

Except. I live on a farm built in the 30’s, and the chicken coop is a 400sqft log structure. The attic is insulated with old straw, and the ceiling boards are fragile enough that I can’t get up there to clean it out. The main floor of the structure is made of old boards, strong and sturdy but there are small gaps between them so you can see down into the lower level. There is a trap door /walkway down into the basement of the coop, but we have it covered to avoid predators coming up through the basement. The windows are mostly covered with plastic, but have the ability to open, and have a gap in the bottom, and then the chinking between logs is gapped enough that there’s quite a lot of air getting through—excellent ventilation, but it’s pretty warm in the winter.

How do I kill mites and lice in an ancient wood structure, with an attic with straw insulation, a floor that is too gappy to hold a diatomaceous earth powder, with a dirt floor below? Also, we have several feral barn cats that come and go that I don’t want to poison with permethrin (though I did buy some), and our neighbour has honeybees maybe half an acre from the coop.

I’d love some advice—this is what ive gleaned from similar posts, but with cats on property and the fact there are so many places I won’t be able to reach while cleaning, I’m open to suggestions!!
My thought was: scrape out the coop, wait til everyone roosts at night, go out with ivermectin to put drops under the wings of all the adults (there’s about 30 adult chickens, 20 juveniles, 10 young chicks, 6 geese and a pretty haggard looking Muscovy hen in the coop. I do not keep food or water inside the coop). After treating everyone, put them all in the stall in the barn for the night. The next day, take a pressure washer to the floor, nest boxes, roosts and walls of the coop, then spray… permethrin? The closest I have access to is Boss pour on (5%). Would that work, diluted to .5% like dr. Doom and sprayed with a sprayer into all the cracks and corners? I can get doctor doom or another spray, but it’s expensive and not going to go far with all the nooks and crannies I need to spray it in. I was also considering ordering some Elector PSP so that I don’t have to do a follow up treatment in 10 days as it’s impossible to get it everywhere, but, living in Canada, I can only get partial containers through eBay.

I figured I’d spread diatomaceous earth and wood ash from our stove in the nest boxes, around the roosts, and in the dirt below the coop. Move a kiddie pool of the DE/ash mixture into the coop for dust bathing, and then use… I don’t know—pine pellets? Wood shavings? Straw? What’s the best bedding to discourage a resurgence? Keep in mind it’s a large space and the gaps are too wide to hold DE/ash on the floor, beyond a little sprinkling.

A couple weeks from now I figured I’d deworm everyone just to be sure. We’ve got babies that I’d like to give away soon and I’d rather not give an infestation along with them.

Thoughts?

 

[DobieLover]

with an attic with straw insulation

The very first thing I would do is remove all the straw from the attic and remove the ceiling planks. Can you please post pictures of your entire coop? If there are ceiling joists, you may need to attach chicken wire to the bottom side to prevent chickens roosting up there.
You shouldn't need the straw for insulation and the straw is doing you no favors.
How cold do your winters get?

to hold a diatomaceous earth powder

This is going to do absolutely nothing to cure your problem.

permethrin

I would buy 10% concentrated Permethrin. Mix it up per the label instructions for the coop in a 2-gallon garden sprayer and in a trigger bottle for the birds.
Strip every bit of bedding and straw out of the coop. I mask up and use a leaf blower to blow out excess dust with all the windows and doors open.
Use the garden sprayer and spray from the ceiling down. You don't have to saturate everything, just dampen it. Make sure you pay attention to the crevices where mites hide. Put a fan in the coop to accelerate drying and put down fresh bedding. Maybe half what you'd normally use because it's all coming out in 7 to 10 days for the next treatment.
That night treat the birds. Using the trigger spray bottle, spray each bird under both wings, under the hackle feathers at the base of the neck, under the vent in the fluff and on the chest lifting feathers to get to the skin.
Repeat the above in 7 to 10 days.
With very bad infestations, you may need a third treatment.
Permethrin is not dangerous to cats once it is dry. No animal should be in the coop when it is being treated and won't be let back in until it is dry.

pressure washer

This is not a good idea with old wood.

Boss pour on (5%

I'm unfamiliar with this product.

Elector PSP

This is a very good product but if you are complaining about the price of Permethrin, this is about 15x more expensive. I have it. I've used it. I love it.
You would do the same treatment as above except when you're done, you're done. No second or third treatment.

diatomaceous earth and wood ash

Again, don't bother. It isn't going to treat the insects.

Wood shavings

I would use this (or hemp bedding after you are completely rid of the infestation).

 

[Boise-girls]

The very first thing I would do is remove all the straw from the attic and remove the ceiling planks. Can you please post pictures of your entire coop? If there are ceiling joists, you may need to attach chicken wire to the bottom side to prevent chickens roosting up there.
You shouldn't need the straw for insulation and the straw is doing you no favors.
How cold do your winters get?

This is going to do absolutely nothing to cure your problem.

I would buy 10% concentrated Permethrin. Mix it up per the label instructions for the coop in a 2-gallon garden sprayer and in a trigger bottle for the birds.
Strip every bit of bedding and straw out of the coop. I mask up and use a leaf blower to blow out excess dust with all the windows and doors open.
Use the garden sprayer and spray from the ceiling down. You don't have to saturate everything, just dampen it. Make sure you pay attention to the crevices where mites hide. Put a fan in the coop to accelerate drying and put down fresh bedding. Maybe half what you'd normally use because it's all coming out in 7 to 10 days for the next treatment.
That night treat the birds. Using the trigger spray bottle, spray each bird under both wings, under the hackle feathers at the base of the neck, under the vent in the fluff and on the chest lifting feathers to get to the skin.
Repeat the above in 7 to 10 days.
With very bad infestations, you may need a third treatment.
Permethrin is not dangerous to cats once it is dry. No animal should be in the coop when it is being treated and won't be let back in until it is dry.

This is not a good idea with old wood.

I'm unfamiliar with this product.

This is a very good product but if you are complaining about the price of Permethrin, this is about 15x more expensive. I have it. I've used it. I love it.
You would do the same treatment as above except when you're done, you're done. No second or third treatment.

Again, don't bother. It isn't going to treat the insects.

I would use this (or hemp bedding after you are completely rid of the infestation).

Wow! This is the most helpful post ever! I am never sure of sequence (coop first or birds first), and appreciate the detail on how to spray the birds. Also great tips for cleaning out the coop!

 

[cricketbug63]

The very first thing I would do is remove all the straw from the attic and remove the ceiling planks. Can you please post pictures of your entire coop? If there are ceiling joists, you may need to attach chicken wire to the bottom side to prevent chickens roosting up there.

You shouldn't need the straw for insulation and the straw is doing you no favors.
How cold do your winters get?

This is going to do absolutely nothing to cure your problem.

I would buy 10% concentrated Permethrin. Mix it up per the label instructions for the coop in a 2-gallon garden sprayer and in a trigger bottle for the birds.
Strip every bit of bedding and straw out of the coop. I mask up and use a leaf blower to blow out excess dust with all the windows and doors open.
Use the garden sprayer and spray from the ceiling down. You don't have to saturate everything, just dampen it. Make sure you pay attention to the crevices where mites hide. Put a fan in the coop to accelerate drying and put down fresh bedding. Maybe half what you'd normally use because it's all coming out in 7 to 10 days for the next treatment.
That night treat the birds. Using the trigger spray bottle, spray each bird under both wings, under the hackle feathers at the base of the neck, under the vent in the fluff and on the chest lifting feathers to get to the skin.
Repeat the above in 7 to 10 days.
With very bad infestations, you may need a third treatment.
Permethrin is not dangerous to cats once it is dry. No animal should be in the coop when it is being treated and won't be let back in until it is dry.

This is not a good idea with old wood.

I'm unfamiliar with this product.

This is a very good product but if you are complaining about the price of Permethrin, this is about 15x more expensive. I have it. I've used it. I love it.
You would do the same treatment as above except when you're done, you're done. No second or third treatment.

Again, don't bother. It isn't going to treat the insects.

I would use this (or hemp bedding after you are completely rid of the infestation)

Hi! Thanks so much for your reply, and for a really thorough instructional on treating everyone!!

Our winters are looooong, but not too cold for the most part. November-mid March usually sits between -3C to -5C, but in Jan-Feb drops down to -10 to -15 (14 to 5 F) for a month, with a few cold snaps of -30 (-22F) for a few days at a time, ans it’s very windy at times. We lost some combs to frostbite in the coop last winter, and one silly hen decided THAT was when to surprise us with chicks, so we lost all but one of them .

Living in Canada makes getting products that actually work hard. I can’t get permethrin in stronger than 5%, can’t get corrid/amprolium, can’t get Elector psp legally… it’s a pain in the butt! Especially as I live in an area without a farm vet… the nearest one is hours away.

I’ve reached out on a local farmers group, hoping someone can sell me some of their container of Elector psp. I don’t mind paying for a product that actually works, and as permethrin is just as hard to get (read: they charge a bunch for shipping and it may get apprehended at the border) I think I’d rather just order the right stuff from the start.

Maybe I’ll just wait and buy a small bit of the elector psp from eBay so that it’s just Done. It sounds like it’s the only thing that will just stop the little buggers.

I swept out the bedding in the coop this morning, it’s dusty as heck now and it’s an ancient building so excuse how unshiny it is compared to most coops on here, but you’ll get the idea! (I had tried the DE under straw and wood chips).

Would you allow access to the dirt floor below once it’s all been treated? is there a way to prevent a resurgence, with them being free range during the day or should I just do this a couple times a year?
I’m guessing the function of the lower level was for dust bathing, but mostly it catches the bedding that falls from the main floor and works to segregate roosters in preparation for freezer camp.


Thanks for your help and advice. Excuse Hattie on the top floor, she’s sassy and wouldn’t get outta the way. The photo closeup of the whitewashed boards are the ceiling. The wood isn’t great, won’t support weight (Hattie got up through the hole we made last time we tried to clean it out up there).
Thanks again!!

 

[Boise-girls]

To echo your question about treatment and free-ranging - we all know the coop needs to be treated, but what about the deep litter pen/run? The dust bath? The grass-surfaced chicken yard? It seems like at some point you just have to live with it and treat to control, but not expect to eradicate. I'm hoping for a deep freeze this winter to help with the areas outside the coop!

 

[DobieLover]

Hi! Thanks so much for your reply, and for a really thorough instructional on treating everyone!!

Our winters are looooong, but not too cold for the most part. November-mid March usually sits between -3C to -5C, but in Jan-Feb drops down to -10 to -15 (14 to 5 F) for a month, with a few cold snaps of -30 (-22F) for a few days at a time, ans it’s very windy at times. We lost some combs to frostbite in the coop last winter, and one silly hen decided THAT was when to surprise us with chicks, so we lost all but one of them .

Living in Canada makes getting products that actually work hard. I can’t get permethrin in stronger than 5%, can’t get corrid/amprolium, can’t get Elector psp legally… it’s a pain in the butt! Especially as I live in an area without a farm vet… the nearest one is hours away.

I’ve reached out on a local farmers group, hoping someone can sell me some of their container of Elector psp. I don’t mind paying for a product that actually works, and as permethrin is just as hard to get (read: they charge a bunch for shipping and it may get apprehended at the border) I think I’d rather just order the right stuff from the start.

Maybe I’ll just wait and buy a small bit of the elector psp from eBay so that it’s just Done. It sounds like it’s the only thing that will just stop the little buggers.

I swept out the bedding in the coop this morning, it’s dusty as heck now and it’s an ancient building so excuse how unshiny it is compared to most coops on here, but you’ll get the idea! (I had tried the DE under straw and wood chips).

Would you allow access to the dirt floor below once it’s all been treated? is there a way to prevent a resurgence, with them being free range during the day or should I just do this a couple times a year?
I’m guessing the function of the lower level was for dust bathing, but mostly it catches the bedding that falls from the main floor and works to segregate roosters in preparation for freezer camp.


Thanks for your help and advice. Excuse Hattie on the top floor, she’s sassy and wouldn’t get outta the way. The photo closeup of the whitewashed boards are the ceiling. The wood isn’t great, won’t support weight (Hattie got up through the hole we made last time we tried to clean it out up there).
Thanks again!!

That is an old building all right. To restructure this into a better coop is going to take a LOT of work. If you're up to it, this is how I'd do it. But only if there is some place the birds can roost during restructuring.
Rip out the floor planks.
Cut out the floor joists. It looks like they are maybe 3x3 rough cut?? Saw them out with a reciprocating saw flush with the logs.
Remove the ceiling planks.
Remove the blocking between the rafters.
Remove all the chicken wire.
Remove the stairs.
Temporarily remove the nest boxes and the poop board/roost assemblies (they will need to be lowered if the old wood floor is being removed anyway.
Clean the snot out of what's left.
Clean the poop boards and nest boxes while they are out.

Treat the entire building (including the new soil floor), the nest boxes and poop board/roost with Permethrin or Elector PSP. And the birds.

Reframe the door and close off the header space with a properly constructed header with a doubled up 2x8. You can leave that flush with the interior wall and use some of the blocking on the exterior to keep the log cabin look.
Reinstall the poop board and nest boxes. You may need to had a concrete block to support the poop board on the ground.
Attach 1/2" hardware cloth between all the rafters, over the bottom ventilation and over all the windows.
Attach chicken wire to the bottom of the ceiling joists to keep birds from roosting up there.
I would turn over the soil of the coop floor to loosen it up and then put a couple of bags of pine shavings.
Repeat the Permethrin treatment in 7 to 10 days.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I don't know about safety for cats and bees (so might want to do additional research on that front), but might want to consider elemental sulfur for long term use. It works slower than permethrin and I don't know if it works on lice, but it's confirmed to work on mites and may be easier to source where you're at. https://entomologytoday.org/2016/07/18/battling-chicken-mites-with-bags-of-brimstone/

 

[1Kalo]

Hi all!
I’m a long time lurker, and I know there are lots of similar posts but I haven’t seen any that *quite* match my situation. Please bear with me if I give too much information!

I recently had a young chick pass away. She’s not the first to die, it happens once in a while, but I’d brought her in because we noticed she was limping and lagging behind her momma. I checked for injuries, gave vitamins, splinted the leg and ultimately held her while she passed away. Then I noticed she was absolutely swarming with tiny grey bugs (they literally didn’t come off her til she died and then it was a mass exodus of them!). Poor baby!! I also noticed that my Roos have really red skin on their legs, and then hens aren’t really laying much. Their poops range from light brown to brown and white, not frothy. A couple have dark purple edges to their combs but none are pale anymore. They get oyster shell, pellets, scratch, cracked corn, chick starter, and have free range of the whole property (they use about 3 acres of it) and enjoy foraging. We do have wild turkeys that literally nothing can deter.

I know I’ve got mites or lice for sure. Alright. So now to clean the coop!

Except. I live on a farm built in the 30’s, and the chicken coop is a 400sqft log structure. The attic is insulated with old straw, and the ceiling boards are fragile enough that I can’t get up there to clean it out. The main floor of the structure is made of old boards, strong and sturdy but there are small gaps between them so you can see down into the lower level. There is a trap door /walkway down into the basement of the coop, but we have it covered to avoid predators coming up through the basement. The windows are mostly covered with plastic, but have the ability to open, and have a gap in the bottom, and then the chinking between logs is gapped enough that there’s quite a lot of air getting through—excellent ventilation, but it’s pretty warm in the winter.

How do I kill mites and lice in an ancient wood structure, with an attic with straw insulation, a floor that is too gappy to hold a diatomaceous earth powder, with a dirt floor below? Also, we have several feral barn cats that come and go that I don’t want to poison with permethrin (though I did buy some), and our neighbour has honeybees maybe half an acre from the coop.

I’d love some advice—this is what ive gleaned from similar posts, but with cats on property and the fact there are so many places I won’t be able to reach while cleaning, I’m open to suggestions!!
My thought was: scrape out the coop, wait til everyone roosts at night, go out with ivermectin to put drops under the wings of all the adults (there’s about 30 adult chickens, 20 juveniles, 10 young chicks, 6 geese and a pretty haggard looking Muscovy hen in the coop. I do not keep food or water inside the coop). After treating everyone, put them all in the stall in the barn for the night. The next day, take a pressure washer to the floor, nest boxes, roosts and walls of the coop, then spray… permethrin? The closest I have access to is Boss pour on (5%). Would that work, diluted to .5% like dr. Doom and sprayed with a sprayer into all the cracks and corners? I can get doctor doom or another spray, but it’s expensive and not going to go far with all the nooks and crannies I need to spray it in. I was also considering ordering some Elector PSP so that I don’t have to do a follow up treatment in 10 days as it’s impossible to get it everywhere, but, living in Canada, I can only get partial containers through eBay.

I figured I’d spread diatomaceous earth and wood ash from our stove in the nest boxes, around the roosts, and in the dirt below the coop. Move a kiddie pool of the DE/ash mixture into the coop for dust bathing, and then use… I don’t know—pine pellets? Wood shavings? Straw? What’s the best bedding to discourage a resurgence? Keep in mind it’s a large space and the gaps are too wide to hold DE/ash on the floor, beyond a little sprinkling.

A couple weeks from now I figured I’d deworm everyone just to be sure. We’ve got babies that I’d like to give away soon and I’d rather not give an infestation along with them.

Thoughts?

OMG, I have been using Pine Pellets for about a year. I change and wash out box every week. I was scooping some pellets out and notice lice coming out the insides of pellets. I even broke a pellet in half and there it was. I was reimbursed for the 40 lb. bag. I’m going to try a different brand and check it out. Question: Can lice be transferred to humans who maintain litter box.

 

[Peggsblueinc]

I sell my eggs. My neighbor just told me she found a round worm in the egg. I bought stuff made for goats but I don’t know how much for chickens. And how do I clean coop. I have all dirt floors. And do I have to clean nesting boxes.

 

[aart]

I sell my eggs. My neighbor just told me she found a round worm in the egg. I bought stuff made for goats but I don’t know how much for chickens. And how do I clean coop. I have all dirt floors. And do I have to clean nesting boxes.

@Peggsblueinc best to start a new thread here
Are you positive it was a round worm?
Did you get a pic or the egg back from the person who found it?