LICE! not Mites.

[Eggcessive]

Permethrin is very available at garden and farm centers in spray or dust form. The spray concentrate is the best value, where you can mix many gallons to use in a hand sprayer or garden sprayer. Some horse sprays are permethrin. Lice require treatment at least twice 10 days, and mites at least 3 times, 7 days apart to get the newly hatched ones before they reproduce.

 

[WildestThing]

Thank you Eggcessive. Got the liquid Permethrin already and use it often. Martin's Pen and Poultry is Permethrin. I will start once a week spraying and hope that will get rid of them soon.

 

[KangaBanga]

Have you considered a simpler solution of using a big cardboard box or making a wooden container in the yard and filling it with sand/soil/DE so the chickens could have a good dustbath there? Not sure how you are going to shade it from snow though...

 

[FarmerGirl101]

Thanks. I took an hour off of work and went to the nearest place and got garden and poultry dust. I dusted her up and dozens of pale red bugs started falling off her dead. I was mortified. I feel so bad I didn't know. She's one of my older girls, I just thought it was her time. How does one clean the coop properly during the winter? Our water is still frozen here.

Red mites I believe it is only on chickens but it may spread to other pets

 

[WildestThing]

My girls also have a dust bath with DE, dirt, sand and poultry dust. The lice that eat the feathers on their backs don't seem to be eradicated by it. My rooster and turkey males, who do not dust bathe, are missing most of their tails. The lice eat the feathers and leave the shaft. It's heartbreaking to see. I spray with Permethrin, now weekly, and hope they will be beautiful again after they molt. We live in Hawaii, so our climate is very wet. We have a coop in a 20' X 20' pen and just covered the entire pen with tarps in case we get ash from the volcano. We are building a huge coop where they all can stay dry and safe, but it's going to be a while.

 

[KangaBanga]

My girls also have a dust bath with DE, dirt, sand and poultry dust. The lice that eat the feathers on their backs don't seem to be eradicated by it. My rooster and turkey males, who do not dust bathe, are missing most of their tails. The lice eat the feathers and leave the shaft. It's heartbreaking to see. I spray with Permethrin, now weekly, and hope they will be beautiful again after they molt. We live in Hawaii, so our climate is very wet. We have a coop in a 20' X 20' pen and just covered the entire pen with tarps in case we get ash from the volcano. We are building a huge coop where they all can stay dry and safe, but it's going to be a while.

If you are getting high humidity then you need to have a coop that is well ventilated.

My coop is the standard 4-5 bird type with a ramp up to the roost area. To improve ventilation, I have taken out the poop tray, saves cleaning up too as poop just drops into the deep litter below. Chickens have no problem taking big steps from the entry way onto the two bars in the coop and also to the nesting area. Also I mount the coop on about a foot high brick wall so the main roosting area is really far off the ground.

Probably wouldnt hurt the chickens to let the volcanic ash come down and coat them with a layer

 

[WildestThing]

Yes, there is high humidity here so the coop is well ventilated and off the ground. We also use a deep litter method as in Korean Natural Farming. The coop has absolutely no odor. I love that!

Volcanic ash is not a good thing. Think of Pompeii. It's not the stuff that accumulates in the fireplace. I wish it was! It would be really useful!