A few months ago, I had noticed feather lice, so cleaned out the coop, sprinkled permethrin and DE everywhere inside the coop and treated my birds individually with poultry and garden dust (active ingredient permethrin) every week to 10 days for 4 cycles. I have DE in their dust bath areas as well. I thought all the nits had hatched and the egg cases that remained were residual empty ones. I checked today for the first time in 3 weeks or so and one of my hens was absolutely loaded. A few more had a handful and the rest I managed to catch had absolutely nothing. I don't know if I had a reinfestation from wild birds, or I managed to not get all the nits.
I also have ducks in the same area, which I didn't treat because most of the time they are in the water. Should I treat them, too?
Is there something else that I can use that will help keep these parasites in check? A spray I can shoot the roosters with that I don't need to use a headlamp at night or try to wrangle them for hours?
I also just moved my 4/5 week old chick brooder into the coop as well and sprinkled some DE in there for them, but I am especially worried about them being vulnerable.
This is super frustrating.
I also have ducks in the same area, which I didn't treat because most of the time they are in the water. Should I treat them, too?
Is there something else that I can use that will help keep these parasites in check? A spray I can shoot the roosters with that I don't need to use a headlamp at night or try to wrangle them for hours?
I also just moved my 4/5 week old chick brooder into the coop as well and sprinkled some DE in there for them, but I am especially worried about them being vulnerable.
This is super frustrating.
I don't have much advice, just following as I'm in the same boat... in my case, I suspect reinfestation from wild birds.
