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Well that sounds like bad news, but it's actually good news because we can "fix" that!
Lice can make a bird anemic and cause them to lose weight. It's probably not the only thing, but it's the major thing now.
First, you need to rid them of the lice. To do so, you must treat not only the birds but also the premises - and retreat the bird in 7 days (and sometimes yet again in another 7 days). Personally, I use poultry dust on everything. It's permethrins which are safe for poultry, more safe than the sevin dusts. Dust the chicken thoroughly, making sure to get the vent area and back of neck particularly. A parmesan shaker works well for this. Another poster said to put it in a knee-high stocking (tied at the top) and use that to dust them. Wear a dust mask.
Scrape the bedding in the coop to one side - dust - replace the bedding, dust the top, stir in.
You can make a white-wash of poultry dust and water (make it thin) and paint on the wood making sure to get in the cracks of the wood. (You'll be helping prevent mite outbursts that way for the future.)
The birds are emaciated and anemic. They'll need corrective nutrition and a follow up of good nutrition to become thrifty again.
First, I do have to say that birds need a vitamin/mineral package and scratch is intended as a treat to be used at 10% of less of the diet. I would recommend integrating a complete feed (layer for example) into their diet and using the scratch in the afternoons so that they eat their layer. They might have been less apt to go down quickly with more nutrition, but they're 5 years old so they've had good care.
Right now they need concentrated nutrition to rebuild their blood. I'd recommend the pellets or crumbles, a boiled egg mashed into yogurt - get them to eat that. If you can buy some vitamins, use those. If it's one chicken alone, you can give here baby vitamins (Enfamil polyvisol non-iron - 3 drops in the side of the beak for a week then taper off.) If more than one, treat the whole flock.
It might be best to just remove the bedding you have now, put the dust down, and put new bedding (dusted) in.
I'd also consider worming them. Use Wazine (piperazine 17%) and then either repeat in 2 weeks, or use ivermectin or levamisole at that time as a follow up. Then you can do twice yearly to great effect.
I'd work on the lice and nutrition first though - don't worm until she's gained weight, at least a week or two from now - preferably two.
The importance of the yogurt is to help them digest their foods more effeciently so that nutrition gets in them better. I think this will really help them.
Please let me know how it goes and we'll go from here when a week or so if you'd like?
Also please feel free to email me if you'd like to.
