Are lice hard to see?

[Ms Biddy]

We processed two polish chickens today and discovered they had lice. The rooster had them worse, with some scabbing between his vent and keel bone. The hen had just a few. The lice were easy to see as the feathers came off. They had been killed during the scald. Neither chicken had looked unwell. We got them not too long ago but they were so crazy and flighty we never held them.

So we spent the rest of the day cleaning and treating the coop. They had just one pen mate, a partridge rock. We removed and treated her too but for the life of me I couldn't find any lice on her. If she has them and I can't see them I'm afraid I won't kill them all. Or maybe she didn't have them for some reason?

My question is are lice hard to see when they're alive? They certainly weren't hard to see when they were dead.

Thank you in advance!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Mites or lice? Lice will lay egg clusters at the base of the feathers. I personally haven't seen lice just their egg clusters. Mites I have seen, they are dark moving specks. Most chickens will have some mites, most don't have life, at least that I can see.

 

[Ms Biddy]

Lice I believe. They looked similar to head lice. Small elongated bodies. Smaller than a grain of rice, but similar in shape.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Lice I believe. They looked similar to head lice. Small elongated bodies. Smaller than a grain of rice, but similar in shape.

That makes sense. Could be the polish didn't dust bath as much as they should have. Hopefully someone who has seen them will pop in. I have just seen the egg clusters on a silkie hen once.

 

[Latestarter]

Mites, due to their very small size & normally translucent bodies, are barely visible to the unaided eye. Mites will leave scabby, ulcerated, ugly, irritated areas of skin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mite

Lice on the other hand are those moving specks that have been mentioned. Lice lay eggs at the base of the feathers, which is one dead give away. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_louse

Both are relatively easily eliminated. If you found lice or determined one or more of your chickens have lice or mites, then treatment is recommended for all, as well as the coop/nest boxes, etc. Once there, they will propagate and spread, just a matter of time.

 

[Ms Biddy]

We cleaned and treated the coop. There was only one other bird in it and she has been treated as well. I hope I'm right and she didn't have them. In that case her treatment was preventative. If she did have them and I couldn't see them it will make it harder to know if I was successful. I would assume they'd be easy to see because they are fairly large.

I have since read several accounts where some birds in mixed flocks are more susceptible to lice and mites than others. Polish chickens were mentioned as being more susceptible. I had planned to move older chicks from my grow out pen into that coop. Now I'm not sure how long I should wait, but I'll continue checking my one lonely hen.

 

[Latestarter]

If you cleaned and treated the coop, you should be able to move the new chicks in straight away.

There are two things that you can do fairly cheaply that will eliminate the issue... In the coop you can spread around (always food grade) DE (diatomaceous earth), especially paying attention to edges/cracks/seams etc. This will kill either over time and is not a poison, so no issue there. It will however NOT work in wet conditions, so any wet bedding and such would need to be removed before use and the areas kept dry for at least 10 days.

The second alternative is Sevin dust. It IS a poison, but a very low grade one that will not harm your birds but will kill any critters (good or bad) inside the coop/bedding/nest boxes/or on the birds themselves. There is no withdrawal time (last I knew) for eating the eggs or the chickens if you wanted to butcher them. Many folks put Sevin in their dust bath areas so the chickens get a nice coating.

Other options for the birds themselves is to buy tick & flea powder and dust them with that, but that is also a poison, and the price per pound for that is substantially more than for Sevin powder. Or you can buy one of the liquid applications and put a small drop on the skin of the back of their necks. but I hesitate to do this cause it may be too powerful and poison them.

 

[Eggcessive]

One of the safest effective lice or mite treatments is permethrin. You can buy a pint of concentrate for $10, and it will make gallons of 10% spray. Use it once and in 10 days for lice to get lice and the newly hatched ones before they lay eggs. Bedding has to also be replaced, and the coop treated. Lice are very fast moving, and seen under vent, and another type can be found around the neck or under wings. Mites are slower moving, and need treatment at 7 day intervals. Both can be hard to get rid of completely. Some chickens who dust bathe more regularly may have beeter luck not getting infested.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I use a pyrethrin based poultry dust. Dust roost cracks and nestboxes under the bedding.

DE is a respiratory irritant to both humans and chickens, I refuse to use the stuff. It also kills all bugs including those beneficial ones. It can render the ground in a chicken run sterile, not a good thing if you are doing deep litter or you want some foraging bugs for the birds.

Barn lime is another good cheap product that works well for drying things out in a chicken coop.

 

[Ms Biddy]

Thanks, permethrin is my preferred method but I also believe in rotating products to prevent resistance. I'm considering Elector PSP but would like to find a neighbor who wants to split a bottle with me because it's so expensive. My neighbors all swear by DE. Guess where the lice infested chickens came from?