Help please: How can little teeny 4d old chicks have tiny wormies crawling out of their butts?

[aliris]

Well, all I can say is I hope lice are good and safe/healthy for babies to eat!! My goodness. I treated the momma, put her back in with the babies, there's a bit of a cloud in there, and momma's got lice crawling on top of her coat now. No wonder she was so assiduous in dustbathing while brooding. I mean, she is uber-committed, I had to remove her or she'd not eat or poop at all I feared, but she spent 30 min dust bathing and would peck at some seeds I sent her way. Now they're all in there with an army of lice coming out on top of the feathers, mothers and babies, and everyone's eating them. No one appears in ill health.

I also permethrined the rest of the flock downstairs from the elevated house where the family is. There are a lot of rats about and one was in the cage the other day. They may have come from there.

I think the other hens are likely infested too because they are covered in dirt, they've been scratching and dirt bathing all day.

I don't think this has been going on long, I check them for parasites quite regularly and the coop too and I haven't seen it before now. I did wonder about the momma because she would nibble at seem to be eating.

At the feed store they told me about the eggs and suggested I clean out the whole coop and spray it with liquid permethrin. So I did buy some of that too. I don't want to do it today because it's late in the day and not enough time to dry out.

Question re treating with permethrin spray: should I scrape out then hose down the coop, or just scrape and then permethrin-spray it?

 

[DonyaQuick]

Question re treating with permethrin spray: should I scrape out then hose down the coop, or just scrape and then permethrin-spray it?

You will definitely want to scrape everything out and hose down to treat all the surfaces and crevices directly. Permethrin spray usually STINKS so do it with the chickens out and away and air out the coop before they go back. I've also found it most effective to then treat the new substrate too so that bugs can't drop off of chickens and hide in a "safe" layer. I typically treat new shavings with the powder though to avoid extra moisture and also go sparse on the first amount I add back in during the treatment.

 

[Bonnieboo]

A video might be helpful if you can manage one.