Help! Multiple parasite problems.

[Popcorn]

I am a college student who studies three hours away from home, so I don't go home often. My dad has been taking care of my flock of two roosters and seven hens but apparently didn't ever check for parasites. I came home for Christmas to discover three huge problems: my coop was infected with red mite, ALL of my chickens have what I think are poultry lice (little white crawlies with egg clusters around feathers), and one poor pullet has horrible scaly leg mites, to the point where some of her scales are falling off. I have scoured and dusted the coop with DE and another insecticide, and it has recently snowed. I don't see any signs of red mite, but doubt they were that easy to get rid of. I have been treating all the birds with Poultry Protector, spraying them to try to get rid of the lice. I have used a toothbrush and Vasline on my pullet with leg mites, but don't know how much it is helping. Is there anything I can do to kill off all the pests quickly? I have to go back to school soon and don't trust that my dad will be able to continue treatment.

 

[applegal]

Do they have access to a dust bath? Since it snowed, I'm guessing your ground is frozen like mine. I have a "sandbox" in the coop for the girls. Maybe adding some DE and a parasite powder to dust bath area would help. Not much help, I'm afraid. Hopefully someone else will have some good ideas.

 

[cafarmgirl]

You just have to keep retreating until you get on top of the infestation. To be honest, I'd ditch the DE for now and use poultry dust until you get this under control. At most I consider DE to maybe be a preventative, even then I don't rely on it. There's folks who will disagree but that's been my experience with DE.

I'm not sure what the hatch cycle of mites and lice are but I'd continue retreating the birds with poultry dust and the premesis with that or a spray that you can really get into all the nooks and crannies of the coop with.

 

[chickentooth]

Dusting your birds with Sevin the fine powdered in either 5% or 10% will quickly get rid of mites and lice. You can also pour it in a dry place that they take a dust bath in and that way they can dust themselves with it. Mix it in the dry soil that they dust in.

As far as the feet on your bird i would try to keep them dry not moisten them with ointments or anything like that. A spray that dries quickly would be the prefered medication, if needed. But after the mites are gone they should heal on their own, keeping them moist will get them infected.

 

[Popcorn]

Unfortunately they don't have anywhere to dust bathe right now, as the ground has frozen and they usually dig themselves a new bath in the sandy dirt part of their yard.

 

[chickentooth]

That sevin dust is pretty great stuff. You can put some glove on and get ahold of a chicken and pour some between its shoulders and then fluff the feathers aaround and the dust is so fine it will fall to the skin and spread around the feather bases. when you are done applying it the chicken will shake and the fine dust will get all over the rest of the chicken also be sure to put som under the wings close to the body, when they shake it off it will be like a dust bath and it works great for the bugs that are toubling them.