Help! Stubborn lice on my favorite rooster!

[ThatCrazyChickenGirl]

Short story - we have one rooster who hasn't responded to pesticides well as the rest of the flock, and has a terrible lice infection, as well as scaly leg mites. He's very underweight. How should I treat him?


More detail -
I've sort of adopted my boyfriend's family flock over the past couple years. One of these is a rather...special rooster that we had babied when he was a juvenile. We're quite attached to him. He's always been a bit odd - he was injured at 6wks. He's never kept his beak trimmed, so we have to trim it for him every couple weeks. He's always had a hard time pecking single objects (aims a bit below the object every time), but eats fine out of a pile. He's also never dust bathed.

I think it's that last problem that caused him to get a horrendous lice infection. We tried diatomaceous earth, but to no avail. About a month ago I gave up and bought some powder pesticide from the local feed store. We had bathed him, hoping that would at least give him some relief, and realized he'd removed every single feather on his butt and lower chest. His tail and saddle feathers are so long they covered the damage, and suddenly seeing it really broke my heart. His skin was bright red. I decided pesticides couldn't hurt more than this.

We have done 3 treatments on the whole flock, one a week. All the hens and our other rooster look much better, and seem completely pest free.

All except this one roo! He is still covered in egg sacs, and appears to have developed a scaly leg mite infection. He's also lost a lot of weight this past week. His breastbone is really defined. Has anyone dealt with this before?

 

[TheYLWFlock]

I’m so sorry to hear this! Unfortunately I can only offer condolences, but hopefully someone more experienced than me can step in.

It sounds like you are trying your best, so kudos to you for that.

Keep up your kind work!

 

[seminolewind]

How sad!
DE won't work. You may have to try different things such as Sevin dust , poultry dust, Adam's dog flea spray. You may also have to treat the pen and coop at the same time . I use a garden or lawn bug spray that connects to the end of the hose and spray everything. You may have to do all this every 2 weeks until it's under control.

I recently had a 6 month battle with stick tight fleas. I noticed one day that one of my hens was pale and weak, and looked at her close and she was infested! Along with about 20 other chickens. They are small and are very hard to pick off. I had to keep a notebook to keep track of what treatments with what group, I have 27 in 6 pens. It was a nightmare! Now it's maintenance. I also gave that weak hen chicken feed mush every day as a treat she loved to put some weight back on her.

Make sure you worm them, (I use Valbazen) , then again 10 days later, then hopefully monthly a few times, then every several months. Worms can cause terrible damage that prevent food from being absorbed and possibly get an e. coli infection.

With scaley leg mites, I put Vaseline on the legs and sprinkle with sevin dust or poultry dust.

I would even think about using that human shampoo for lice.