Checking a few important points before Permethrin treatment

[cmom]

Also, FYI - about Permethrin: I just ran across another thread today, from April of this year, in which people said Permethrin only needs to be applied once, and you only need to apply again if you see parasites on the birds again! I think the thread was called "Spraying with Permethrin", and the member who commented was Dawg (Dawg 53, I think - I do know he's a veteran member, and has always been spot on with this stuff). I was shocked to hear that, but at any rate, I'm going to double check that permethrin is a product that doesn't need at least 3 treatments to break a life cycle.

You do indeed need to do repeat spraying's. Permethrin does not kill the pests eggs so when they hatch you will have another outbreak. You need to spray inside the coop thoroughly every crack and crevice. I use a gallon sprayer with a wand. It allows me to get the spray into the hard to reach areas. I use the permethrin dust on the birds. Most often it's wild birds who can introduce the unwanted pests. Especially during the summer months I have been spraying once a week. I did a heavier concentration spraying initially. TSC carries the powder, premixed spray and the concentrate.

 

[cmom]

I have a much larger operation than a backyard flock. Currently I'm around 400 birds including the chicks. I have 12 coops. After the chicks grow out over the summer I will sell the excess males and only keep the ones I want to breed. When I had my infestation, I moved the infected birds to another coop that I had just treated. Then I took a power washer to the infested coop, which I use as a grow-out coop mostly, and after it dried out thoroughly sprayed it. I did let it set for awhile before I put any birds back into it. I kept up the spraying awhile weekly in all of the coops and when the weather starting getting cooler then every two weeks then through the winter, monthly. Now I have had some wrens trying to build their nests in particular nest boxes. I have sprayed in the nest boxes the wrens have been in and I also put some dust in them too. I completely remove any nesting materials and replaced it with fresh stuff. So far so good.

 

[aart]

I know there's something there, just hope I can find out tonight exactly what we're really dealing with.

Did you figure out if and what you have?

 

[khind]

Did you figure out if and what you have?

Sorry so long to get back on and respond. No, I did not/have not figured it out. I really wanted to try to get a good look (Again), but partly because I was more comfortable doing the treatment than my helper, I didn't want to take a chance of having to fanagle for so long that it freaked the birds out (been there, done that)... Not ideal, but at least I did the treatment. It's the first time I haven't been able to identify a parasite before treating though, which I'm not crazy about.
I have a couple pics of the 2 birds who have visible effects to their feathers from whatever cause, and I'll try to post them in this thread.
We treated the chickens last Sat. p.m. the 29th, with a thorough coop and run treatment the next day, so we'll treat the 2nd time this weekend.

 

[khind]

...It's going to take me a while to send pics because my phone is suddenly unhappy that I've got about 500 hundred on there right now...

 

[khind]

Correction: More like in the thousands...
Anyway, I'm going to try downloading these pics of my only 2 birds with this similar-region (at the base of the tail feathers) feather loss. Here are two of Roo, and one of Speckled Girl, who happens to be his favorite of our tiny flock. I'm trying them as a thumbnail, but I've never done that... Hopefully the images can be enlarged.

 

[DellaMyDarling]

To consider:

Treat the birds with a Permethrin bath.

I forget concentration. 1/4 or 1/2 cup to 5 gallons...I found it in an older BYC thread plus a few blogs.

It seemed to do wonders here.
I also cannot confirm nor disprove that I had a very severe reaction to Permethrin10 that landed me in ER after treating birds and coop.
At least the birds are alright now LOL

 

[ValerieJ]

To consider:

Treat the birds with a Permethrin bath.

I forget concentration. 1/4 or 1/2 cup to 5 gallons...I found it in an older BYC thread plus a few blogs.

It seemed to do wonders here.
I also cannot confirm nor disprove that I had a very severe reaction to Permethrin10 that landed me in ER after treating birds and coop.
At least the birds are alright now LOL

My permethrin and Pyrethrin bottles both say 1/99 ratio for chickens. Would you put more in if it's a bath?

 

[khind]

Well, today I treated for the 2nd time (7 days after the 1st treatment); will repeat in another 7 days. Speckled Girl (the bantam) has been shedding feathers less and less over the past several days, to where I'm only finding one or two in her dust bath area; but Roo still loses on average 10 or so/day, sometimes more, in various places in the coop, run, and outside.
Masha (my black Austrolorp) isn't losing any feathers (still); and Buffy (my buff-colored bantam) had never really lost any either. Yet Buffy is the one I would have expected to maybe get parasites, since she was broody for about 5 weeks - almost 3 in the coop/nest, and then another almost 3 weeks in my house!
I did notice that both Roo and Masha (but not Speckled Girl) had dirty/clumped up bottoms when I treated last night. In fact, I was going to try to bathe them today, but I completely forgot after treating the whole coop again today. I'll try tomorrow p.m.
Lastly, the reason I mentioned in my last post that Speckled Girl is Roo's favorite hen is because when I saw her feather loss - with no visible parasites - I wondered if it could have been from his mounting her often. But then I noticed that he also has loss in the same region... but that no one else does. Ugh.