Anyone ever used Advantage on chickens?

[KellyHM]

Just curious if anyone has ever tried it and knows a dose. After 1.5 years of living on this property and never seeing a stick tight flea, all the sudden they have been EVERYWHERE. I have been dusting the chickens and their areas for months now, and while the population density had definitely decreased, I can not get RID of them.

The Comfortis/Revoluation keeps them off the dogs and cat, but I can NOT seem to keep them off the birds. It doesn't help that the neighbor has about 10 dogs that roam all over and have never seem a flea treatment in their life.

 

[Anianna]

I have not tried using Advantage on chickens, but when we had a kitten that was too young for flea treatents covered in fleas, we would set a dishpan of soapy water out at night under a handmade wire cage with the kitten just outside of the cage and a light on the opposite side of the dishpan. In the night, many of the fleas would jump off the kitten and hop towards the light, drowning in the pan of soapy water. It's not a complete solution, but it helped to manage the infestation better.

We use pure peppermint oil diluted in a spray bottle to kill and repel ants. It would be relatively inexpensive to try to spray your coop a couple of times a day to see if that discourages further infestation or even kills fleas in the bedding.

 

[jeremy]

Diatomaceous Earth works wonders.

http://www.wolfcreekranch.net/diatomaceous_earth.html

 

[kelar]

I would not use any of the spot-ons for poultry - they are extremely concentrated. However, you can use frontline pump spray. It's not cheap, but goes a long ways with birds. Squirt some into a small container and use a syringe without needle or eyedropper to apply. I put no more the .5 cc. on a full grown bantam, maybe a little more on a LF. One drop on the skin of the neck, one drop under each wing, one drop by the oil gland and the rest in drops around the vent area. Works wonders and lasts a long time.

 

[ChooksChick]

I have used Advantage, and I use 2 drops for a banty, 4 for LF. I'm not sure how to figure a doseage, so I went with the proportional amount for a small dog/cat.

Haven't had a problem with toxicity, but it is an off-label use, and it is an animal used in the human food chain, so I can't say it would be smiled upon by the feds. We don't know the implications.

 

[KellyHM]

I think I'll try the advantage. The DE won't really work for me since my free rangers have over an acre to run around on...I can't DE the whole thing! Off-label use is legally ok for them since there are no poultry-labeled products for this and it's not a no-no drug in food-producing animals.

ETA: And I don't sell any of my eggs/meat for eating, just give them away to a couple friends, who I can warn and won't care anyways.