Advice about mites/lice please

[SunflowerTheBun]

Hi there, first of all this isn’t really an emergency but I just want some thoughts...

I have silkies and sometimes they get mites/lice. They don’t get it too often to be super worried about, and I always dust them and the nests when it happens. Today we came home from holidays (a neighbor had looked after the chooks for us) and I found the eggs collected over the time had the annoying things crawling over them. So I went through this routine ^^ which seems to work fine.

But I’m wondering, is there anything I can do to put a stop to the critters more permanently? They’re well annoying and sadly I’ve lost chickens in the past to them

What do other people do?

- Sunny

 

[Eggcessive]

Permethrin is very good. The liquid concentrate is inexpensive and makes many gallons to use with a spray bottle for the chickens or garden spray for the coop. Mixing instructions are on the label. My brand is 15 ml or 1/2 ounce per gallon of water.

Permethrin comes in garden dust also, which may be preferrable on chickens during cold weather. Lice should be treated at 10 day intervals , while mites require 7 day intervals to get the bugs, and to kill any new bugs as they hatch before they lay new eggs. At least 3 treatments or more may be required.

The coop and nests have to be cleaned thoroughly, bedding emptied, and roosts, nests, and coop should be sprayed with permethrin. Otherwise, they keep coming back.

 

[Folly's place]

I've been happy with the permethrin spray concentrate; it's much easier to use, and way less expensive than the permethrin dust.
Clean out the bedding and spray the floor and under the bedding everywhere in the coop. It's also easier to spray the walls, and get into all the little spots there with spray.
As long as your birds range outside, and come in contact with wild songbirds, you will have occasional infestations of mites or lice. Check a few birds (different ones) every week or so, at night, with a flashlight, and treat everyone and everything if one mite or louse is found, on one bird. That's worked very well here, after I also had deaths from mites that I didn't find until it was too late.
Mary

 

[Pensmaster]

If you have access to good hardwood ashes use them in their dust baths as well.
I’m extremely lucky here to not have them as a general rule. Hearing all the horror stories from you guys.
I did have a stray hen come into the yard once. I quickly quarantined her and found she was loaded with them. None of the dust powders worked. This “free” bird was getting expensive.
Out of desperation I remembered that old timers would use kerosene. Not having kerosene I used 3in1 oil. 2 applications and they were gone. Next time I’m going to try just vegetable oil as I think it was the suffocating action of the oil that did it.
I did look for her owner, but out here animals are dumped along the roadside. How she made it through coyote alley to my place is beyond me.

 

[casportpony]

I see you're in Australia. What products have you tried? If you found bugs on the eggs, those might be mites, not lice.

Anyway, @Fancychooklady is my go to Silkie person and she happens to live in AU, so hopefully she will drop in and offer her advice.

Here in the US, the majority of us chicken owners use permethrin spray or dust, while a smaller number use the very exensive Elector PSP, and in Canada they use carbaryl.

 

[Fancychooklady]

The weather has been perfect for mites and lice her in Aus. As casportpony mentioned, sounds more like red mites. If you go to the garden section at your local Bunnings you can purchase a few products to wage war against the crawlies. Coopex ($11 )is a pyrethrum product that you make up in a garden sprayer and one satchel will give you 2 and a half litres. Empty out the nest boxes and spray the coop during the day while they are off the birds. Mites feed on the birds at night time whilst they are perching and spend the day hiding in the nooks and crannies of the coop. The other product ( also available at Bunnings ) is Yates New Tomato Dust it contains sulphur , spinosad ( the active ingredient in Elector ) and copper sulphate. ($10) . Dust the birds liberally and dust under the new nesting material. You can also use permethrin generic surface spray to spray the coop every few days until you are happy that they are dealt with. Yates Success ($23)also contains spinosad and can be made up at a ratio of 10ml to the litre of water .
The visiting sparrows and rodents bring the mites in so if at all possible you need to try to limit their access to your birds.

 

[SunflowerTheBun]

THANK YOU EVERYONE!!! Especially those in Aus because I love Bunnings I’ll do my best to combat them, and yes I do think they’re mites rather than lice. Unfortunately my chooks come into contact with pigeons roaming the run and sometimes eating their food! Since you’ve all been so helpful do you have any ideas of how to keep them away? They do get scared off by my chooks if they’re too close and one of my hens used to scare them away but she doesn’t really care anymore lol
Oh also another question - should I be keeping the chooks away from areas of the coop that I Spray/dust? I just don’t think they should eat it but that’s a bit hard to prevent if I spray/dust the chickens themselves...

 

[ChickNanny13]

BYC Members are the BEST Informative and helpful

 

[SunflowerTheBun]

BYC Members are the BEST Informative and helpful

Very true

 

[Fancychooklady]

THANK YOU EVERYONE!!! Especially those in Aus because I love Bunnings I’ll do my best to combat them, and yes I do think they’re mites rather than lice. Unfortunately my chooks come into contact with pigeons roaming the run and sometimes eating their food! Since you’ve all been so helpful do you have any ideas of how to keep them away? They do get scared off by my chooks if they’re too close and one of my hens used to scare them away but she doesn’t really care anymore lol
Oh also another question - should I be keeping the chooks away from areas of the coop that I Spray/dust? I just don’t think they should eat it but that’s a bit hard to prevent if I spray/dust the chickens themselves...

Be sure to remove the water and feed dishes when you are spraying.