Is 100% prevention possible?

[casportpony]

Well, Everybody has there own opinions. I have mine. I've been using DE for 8+ years in my chickens dust baths, never had a problem.

Glad it works for you.

 

[Beer can]

My question is, is it possible to prevent them completely?

It's possible.
Couple decades of chicken keeping I've never had a problem with mites or lice. I don't use DE, or chemicals. I would use permethrin if I ever had to just haven't.
I don't know if it's the deep litter, hardly ever clean the coop, maybe once a yr, sometimes every other, depends on how much fertilizer I need. My birds mostly dust bathe in their deep litter powder, sometimes in the dirt outside. I occasionally give them a big pile of wood ashes from our outside wood boiler to play in.
Maybe I've just been lucky but I've never noticed any bugs on my birds and I process many every yr throughout the yr, think I would have noticed some dry plucking them if they ever had any.
Good luck

 

[casportpony]

I've read all about providing dust bathing areas to help prevent mites, fleas, etc. My question is, is it possible to prevent them completely? I mean, is it something that I will more than likely be dealing with as a chicken keeper at some point no matter what precautions are taken? I just want to do anything I can to avoid it, if possible. The girls will be heading out to the coop in a few days and it's my first time at all of this. I just want to do everything I can to ensure that tiny pests won't be a problem. The big pests are covered because this sucker is like Fort Knox. It's the little ones I'm worried about now. I'm stressed out just thinking about it... the thought of mite/flea infested chickens sounds awful.

When I first got chickens we looked into stuff more naturally, so we bought a huge bag of food grade DE and put it everywhere!Needless to say, I was very disappointed when I found lice on some of my girls. I decided to take it to the next level, which was DE on the bird, so I coated them from head to toes in the stuff and made sure to get it al the way to the skin. Disappointment again... The next day the still had lice. Since then I've used only carbaryl, permethrin, or ivermectin. Ivermectin is used mainly on the peafowl and duck because they are just too difficult to dust or spray.

Carbaryl (Sevin) is no longer approved for use in poultry here in the US, but it is in Canada.

 

[casportpony]

think I would have noticed some dry plucking them if they ever had any.

Probably!

 

[Kiki]

It's possible.
Couple decades of chicken keeping I've never had a problem with mites or lice. I don't use DE, or chemicals. I would use permethrin if I ever had to just haven't.
I don't know if it's the deep litter, hardly ever clean the coop, maybe once a yr, sometimes every other, depends on how much fertilizer I need. My birds mostly dust bathe in their deep litter powder, sometimes in the dirt outside. I occasionally give them a big pile of wood ashes from our outside wood boiler to play in.
Maybe I've just been lucky but I've never noticed any bugs on my birds and I process many every yr throughout the yr, think I would have noticed some dry plucking them if they ever had any.
Good luck

See @casportpony I wasn't the only one born lucky.