Coop full of problems! Disease, lice, picking, egg eating. HELP!

[Tinkspirit70]

Have you tried nu-stock? or an anti-fungal like lotriman? you can get the ivomectin from Jeffers on-line or order it oout of their catalog for $20 and it last forever

 

[Tropical Chickies]

One sure fire way to get rid of the lice is to use Ivermectin paste 1.87%. It is an equine wormer paste that I buy and you mix 4cc/ml of ivermectin to 1 gallon of water. Treat for 3 days and repeat in 14 days. This works like magic! During the time you are treating, you can't eat the eggs for 2 weeks. Basically you can't eat the eggs for 1 month.

 

[gckiddhouse]

Thanks for the advice, but I am no longer dealing with lice or mites. I have a chicken with a skin problem. I don't know what it is. I have treated her for lice/mites as well as for fungus, but she still itches and scratches her neck constantly. The pullet she is with may or may not have this problem on the top of her head. We can't tell. So I don't know if she has something that wasn't killed by all the treatments they have had, or if it is an allergy or just a neurosis. I am currently looking at the possibility of mange. I don't know where she would have picked that up. But I guess anything is possible. I am hesitant to pay for ivermectin if I don't even know if it will help. That is not something I would ever use again unless I absolutely had to. I am kind of a no chemicals kind of gal.

Anyone have experience with mange?

 

[Tinkspirit70]

Only with my dog, the nu-stock is good for it but the vet actually puts him on the ivermection injectable with instructions to put over his food ( I am not saying to do this with your girls though) but the nu-stock is a great salve for all kinds of things including mange ) and you can also order it from jeffers

 

[rufus]

I also live in Phoenix. We always put the dead ashes from the wood stove out for the hens to take their dust bath in. This seems to work for me. It keeps down bugs.

Also, we never trade birds with other people. I give chicks away, but once they leave the property they never come back. People who trade birds trade problems. If you buy someone else's birds, you are getting their problems.

I suspect that the skin problems come from having too many roosters. Get rid of all but one. They seem to have their favorites that get worn down on the back. This just means that they are very attractive sexually.

Egg eating is caused by having too many chickens in too close confinement, or a mineral deficiency. I give mine oyster shell. It is cheap and easy. Also, I make sure they have plenty of room and green plants to eat.

Chickens are not all that bright. Put dead light bulbs and old door knobs in the nest. After they peck on enough junk, they will realize it doesn't work any more.

I was always taught to not mix the breeds of chickens or the generations of chickens. However, now we are doing that. I still don't feel good about it. I would keep them in separate chicken yards if I had the room.

Anyway, I never put chemicals on my birds.

Rufus

 

[gckiddhouse]

I don't know how many of those who responded to my original post subscribed to the thread, but I am hoping it is enough that I will get some help. I thought i had all this licked! These posts were from this summer. Since then, we got rid of everything, got the two Polish pullets back in with the flock, feathers all grew back, everybody molted, most of them were laying eggs, life was good in the chicken coop...
Then, just before Christmas, I picked up one of the Polish girls who has never weighed more than about a pound and checked her over (as I do periodically) and bam! LICE!!!! YUCK!

So, what happened??? Did we not get them fixed up completely the first time? Or did she pick them up again from some source?

What we did before:
We dusted the chickens every 10 days with Pyrethrin powder - 4 times, so for over 2 months.
Cleaned the coop with a mite/lice killing cleaner
Sprayed in and around the coop with a citrus based pesticide
Made it snow weekly with DE ALL over the coop for 3 months and continued every couple of weeks until it started to rain in November. I have found that it turns to concrete when it gets wet, so we don't put it down when we are getting rain.

We had not seen any of this for several months, so I am just so upset to see the problem return. It really is enough to make me just get rid of the chickens all together. I am not interested in keeping chickens with bugs on them. I think it is both gross and cruel.

So, can anyone help? It is too cold to bathe them. I am not going to bring bug infested chickens in my house for a bath and blow dry. Period. I have not tried the ivermectin, but I am reading several accounts that state that it only works sometimes. Some say there is a withdrawal period and some say there isn't. I am a no chemical kind of chicken owner and we sell our eggs to people who appreciate that. I am willing to do what is needed to get rid of these things, but I need to know more about these chemicals. For one - will this actually work? Some say it won't work on bugs who don't actually feed on the bird. I assume these do feed on the birds if they are living on them.

Please, oh please help me. It isn't any fun like this.

 

[CMV]

Bugs happen. If you have birds you will deal with bugs probably on more than one occasion. It's not something to get so worked up over. Treat the birds and the entire coop again and repeat the procedure in 7-10 days. You can use any product you feel comfortable with. (I myself prefer Eprinex because of the ease of use and the lack of withdrawal time.) You know that you have had bugs multiple times, so maybe you institute a regimen for treating the birds prophylactically rather than waiting until the coop is crawling again. They could be picking them up in your environment from wild birds. (I have problems with mites because my birds hang out with several wild ground birds.) You also could have missed a few bugs during the clean out and they have multiplied and created another infestation. Bugs can be challenging to get rid of, but it is not impossible. Just keep treating the birds and the coop on a routine basis until the problem is resolved. A pain in the neck? Yes, but not a big deal.

Good luck.

 

[gckiddhouse]

Well, I was going to try this product. Some say there is a withdrawal time and other say there isn't. I have found conflicting information on how and when and how much to use. The product says not to use it on chickens, so it doesn't give directions for use.
How do you use it? Have you found it to be effective against lice?
Thanks so much!

 

[Sjisty]

Quote:
I'm not sure what product you are talking about, but I use Eprinex, which is a form of Ivermectin. It is a non-withdrawl form, so you don't have to throw away the eggs. I use 4 to 6 drops on the back of the neck on the skin surface and have never had any signs of lice, mites, or worms since I started using it. I use it approximately every 3 months.

Good luck!

 

[gckiddhouse]

Thank you for that information. How do we know how much to give chickens? Is this just something that people do? Also, how do we know it doesn't affect the eggs? I found this article, but wonder if anyone has other information as to the safety of this drug. Thanks.
http://nccs-dailymed-1.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/archives/fdaDrugInfo.cfm?archiveid=26950