how can you remove lice eggs?

[nuchickontheblock]

In the human world you try to comb out all the lice eggs. How do you remove them from the chickens. I'm assuming that the permethrin doesn't kill all the eggs. (it doesn't with human lice). Sooooooo.... what's the best way to get them off? cut feathers?

 

[welasharon]

I used the extra virgin coconut oil that someone on here posted to use. It worked. It seemed to dissove them after a bit. You have to liquify it by very slightly warming it up. I put it on the nits with a q-tip.
sharon

 

[artsyrobin]

i used skinsosoft lotion, and that works pretty good- just rub it in and work it loose

 

[nuchickontheblock]

I think this is going to be an afternoon project

. . . thanks for the suggestions.
Paula

 

[Liamm_1]

I couldn't imagine my chickens holding still for something like an inspection, let alone a treatment LOL
Hope mine never get bugs I guess

 

[Judy]

Quote:
I can't pick most of mine up when they are out and about, either. Usually, though, chickens are much tamer when on the roost. I have handled every one of them several times by going in the coop at night and picking them up one by one. I've done it to worm them and check for lice/mites, etc.

Lice/motes are carried by wild birds. They can get them from wild birds simply flying over the chickens, and an infestation can actually kill a chicken if it gets bad enough. So I check them every now and then. Two of mine will let me pet them and eat from my hand, and some others can be handled when on the nest. I'll check one when I happen to be able to catch her, and I check everyone every few months.

I have read on here, "If you have chickens, you have lice or mites," though I've never seen any. But they get Eprinex for worms once a year, which also kills lice and mites. And I spray or dust with pyrethrin/permethrin in the coop.

 

[artsyrobin]

what i do, and of course it depends on your situation- a bathe the chicken, then put the skin so soft on it- since they are relaxed after a bath, it isn't that difficult- the other idea is to sneak it on them at nite when they are bedding down. Also, here is the advice i was given to prevent them, like frontline for chickens

It is Ivermectin liquid (NOT the horse wormer paste). It is the kind for cattle & swine and is off label for poultry. I use 4-5 drops for bantams and 7-8 drops for large fowl. Repeat in 10 days to catch any eggs that have hatched. I got about a 6-8 oz. bottle at TSC and it lasted a long time. Get a syringe with a big needle, too. Those little insulin needles are too fine to get anything out of the bottle.

you don't inject them but put it on the skin between the wings- she suggested a syringe- i got to thinking, what about an old dish soap bottle? haven't tried that yet​

 

[nuchickontheblock]

Cleaned out the coop today, clipped alot of feathers that had heavy egg clusters and dusted the girls down with poultry dust (permethrin). Also put some DE and poultry dust in the nest boxes and mixed in the sand where they take a dust bath in the covered pen. Once I got examining them in the light, I had one little one that was just crawling with lice. She is our smallest bantam (maybe weighs a pound LOL) and bottom of the pecking order.

We've been lucky with only 3 hens we have spent alot of time handling them. Our little infested one, lets you cradle her like a baby and closes her eyes, which was pretty handy when we were dusting her.

We'll do the dust thing again in a week and hope that takes care of it. We have a flock of song birds who have been flying into the pen and run to get food since we have had the heavy snows, so I know that's where they go them from.

 

[barbaraearley]

I tried all the above methods with no success . The bottle of skin so soft got so slippery I could not hold it and the melted coconut oil didn't soften the cluster of eggs at all. What did work though with 100% results was the waterless shampoo Cowboy Magic, designed to get grass stains off of white/grey horses but is excellent on white/light Sussex.
I just placed each bird one at a time on non-slip matting, throughly soaked the feathers around the vent where all the clusters were, gently worked it in creating a foam and the clumps just slid off intact! No tress to the bird. I then got loads of kitchen paper and squeezed as dry as I could and then lightly sprayed with tea tree antiseptic just to make sure the skin was soothed although it looked fine. The birds were so much happier with clean nit free bottoms.
I shall continue with Diatrom in bedding and on the birds over the next couple of weeks to make sure that the problem is gone for good.

 

[trudyg]

Do you have to remove the egg clusters? Seems they would eventually go away on their own. Or does the presence of the whitish matter on the feathers mean there are eggs that will hatch out? I've been spraying the 'dirty' bottoms once a week (bum and under feathers), cleaned the coop thoroughly, dusted it with permethrin. All birds got a dose of ivermectin as well as a permethrin spray all over twice and I will keep doing the spray once a week until the spots are gone if I have to--I just don't see me bathing a chicken. Maybe the dry shampoo mentioned by bargaraearley..... I have to leave so early in the morning for work that I go to bed 'with the chickens, so pulling each off the roost for a bath would mean getting up around 3 am and even then I don't know that I'd finish the job.