I'm a nervous Nellie so I read directions on everything before using. The instructions tell what parts of the chicken to spray directly (of course avoid eyes/nostrils) and instructions say what parts of the coop nestboxes and perches to spray (usually the crevices and corners). On our chickens my DH holds a hen for me while I spray her vent area, back of the head/neck, under each wing on the skin, and on the lower chest between her legs. For bearded/muffed birds I will spray the neck under the beard. Although PP works well for scaly mite prevention we additionally use vitamin E oil in a little bottle from the Walmart vitamin shelf and massage the oil into the chicken's legs, toes, feathered toes too, massage into their comb, beak, and around the area of the face. This was suggested by our vet in lieu of using greasy vegetable oils or vaseline that stains the feathers and the vitamin E is beneficial to the chicken's skin, toes, beak, and comb. We have only 4 birds so we do this monthly, sometimes every two months, depending on climate, if the chickens are broody, if a chicken needs a tush shampooing, etc. Safe to use as often as you want. We use the judge's hold in scooping up our hens so we aren't holding them by their egg productive sides. We use a wooden TV tray to set the hens on a towel while we spray and oil massage them. I warm the Poultry Protector bottle in warm water so there's no cold spray to surprise the warm chicken. Now these are our preventative health measures. For an actual lice/mite infestation you might need some stronger poisons - we've found an ounce of preventative health maintenance has kept us free of lice/mites/fleas/ants/spiders. If we catch a web in a nestbox we'll treat for 3 days using PP and it works.
Added note: We do preventative maintenance on hens at night so the oil absorbs into their skin overnight and there's no grease on their body for dirt to stick.
