Broody hen/lice

[albird101]

So my broody hen is severely infested with lice!! I plucked out alot of the eggs sacks but she's still infested, her dude date is this Sunday and I don't want her to pass the lice down to her chicks what do I do?

 

[Kelsie2290]

Hello and Welcome To BYC! For lice would use poultry dust / something like Sevin, I would powder her and take the eggs out of the nest and replace the bedding and dust the nest area and the area around it. Redust her and the area in 10 days, I wouldn't dust the chicks individually at that time but keep an eye on them and do them next round if you need to. You also need to treat the rest of your coop and birds also.

 

[drumstick diva]

Kelsie has given you very good advice. Lice can quickly debilitate birds, especially babies.

 

[albird101]

Hello and Welcome To BYC! For lice would use poultry dust / something like Sevin, I would powder her and take the eggs out of the nest and replace the bedding and dust the nest area and the area around it. Redust her and the area in 10 days, I wouldn't dust the chicks individually at that time but keep an eye on them and do them next round if you need to. You also need to treat the rest of your coop and birds also.

Would it be good, if I could powder her down like you said, but instead of moving the eggs could I let them hatch then move her and the chicks to a new nest? Plus how long will it take for the poultry dust to kill of the lice?

 

[Kelsie2290]

You still have three days until they hatch? That nest is probably really infested, and you don't want to dust the baby chicks when they have just hatched, so if you don't clean and dust around the nest now before your chicks hatch they could be pretty infested before you switch nests over since it will take them a couple of days to hatch also... I would clean and change the bedding now, do it at night and as fast and quietly as you can, take her, dust her and and put her in an dark box/ crate (would not put the eggs with her, for the few minutes it should take you to dust everything they should be fine, take out the old bedding, dust the box, then put in new bedding and the eggs back in then mama, might want to block mama in for a little while if she is spooky, but most won't do much of anything. The hatched lice get killed pretty fast, it is the lice eggs that you have to keep repeating the dusting for until they are all hatched and killed.

 

[TwoCrows]

Welcome to BYC!

So sorry about your hen. Kelsie has given you some great advice. I have never dealt with this situation, so I can't be of help to you.

But I do hope you have a successful broody hatch and welcome to our flock!

 

[gander007]