Just so you know...about lice on chickens.

[IndigoJaguar]

You do not need to clean their coops when you kill the lice on your chickens. Everything read online says that lice spend their whole lifecycle on one chicken, not in the environment. So they are not like mites....you don't have to go hog wild cleaning the coop.
All my girls had baths today to get rid of their lice, and they are going to get Sergent's Natural Flea and Tick on them to kill the eggs that may hatch. Mmmm. They smell delicious!

 

[Dar]

so what about the critters that took a left and fell off the chicken and is now sitting on the roost waiting to ask for directions to the closest chicken? how long can they live off the host?

if you think about human lice... body lice or head lice... they can and do live off the host for quite sometime before dying..you would think there is the same risk with poultry lice

 

[IndigoJaguar]

I am only quoting what I have read from University studies and information. They say lice live a few days without a host. Since they can't live much without a chicken, there is hardly going to be dozens of them laying around my coop waiting on my girls. The one or two that MAY have fallen off will die when my girls dust in DE. Human lice are NOT chicken lice. No where near the same. Human lice can't be drowned, according to a nurse on here; chicken lice can, I did it today.