lice!!!

[Miss Lydia]

As for cleaning the coop--
I am planning on moving my birds to a new coop immediately.. I am no expert but I prefer to go the natural way..
so I will be spraying the new coop regularly with orange guard..

But first, I will be giving the birds a dip using hydrogen peroxide/borax/water to kill off the bulk of the bugs...

and I will then apply the VCO... try to use DE where I can

Lastly I will set up a bird bath with DE/sand/dirt so they can clean themselves accordingly...

I do have ACV...should I mix that with VCO? I heard somewhere else that putting ACV in their water and..possibly garlic? is a good thing to help
ward off parasites?

Well be sure to let us know if it works.. I'm all for using natural and i do most of the time but when my birds got mites I freaked out and got rid of them the quickest way I could. That was going on 2 years ago. Haven't had mites since, I use Poultry protector to spray out my coops and Epernix pour on to treat my birds every 3 months this also worms them. I had used DE for years and still do but not to kill parasites just to keep their feed fresh. Most folks that have had birds for any length will tell you the DE will not kill the bugs if you already have them but will help keep them at bay. I've never used straw only pine shaving from TSC so don't know about bugs being brought in on it. And

I use ACV in my birds drinking water but mainly as a tonic never heard it will keep bugs away.

 

[OldChurchEggery1]

For those of you who use Sevin dust in the coop, are you still able to compost the bedding or does it make the bedding unusable?

 

[klmclain1]

I don't think I would compost any bedding removed for lice/mite infestations - of course this is my opinion. It needs to be removed from the property all together - sevin or no sevin. I don't want the little critters any where in the vicinity or in any position to "escape" and infest even the wild birds.

 

[flagirl]

I just did this last evening. hoping for great results. I also cleaned the coop and sprayed with it with sevin. now i have 12 hens with greasy butts. I had 2 hens who looked like they probably had lice, i did them all anyway. I am lucky, I work in a small health food store and get my products at cost. I use coconut oil for everything and even give to my lab/mix dog in her food for her health.

 

[debir1966]

Well, go figure, we just found lots of little pesties on our birds.

In April we bought 10 hens from a lady. It has been many years since we had chickens, so we only thought to look for bugs crawling on them and didn't see any, so we though we were good to go!

We didn't notice right away that anything was wrong and then we noticed that some of the hens feet seemed "flaky" with their scales sticking up a little. It still didn't dawn on me that anything was wrong for quite a long time until we closely examined one of the hens that was not acting normal. We were just looking to see if she had a blind eye because she seemd to be having trouble navigating some things.

While we were looking at her eye, I took a good look at her feet and was shocked, concerned and disturbed by their condition. I took pictures and started searching the internet and BYC... scaley leg mites!

After spending 2 days reading everything I could get my eyes on, we started dipping their feet in oil this evening. Since I had also read about mites and lice, instead of just lifting random feathers to look for buggies, I checked the vent area and sure enough, COVERED in eggs!

Sooo, tomorrow I am calling my vet to make sure that the course of treatments I plan to use are safe for my children, pets, the chickens and the eggs we eat from them, then I am going shopping! I hope I will be able to find what I need locally, but we live in a very small community, so I am not sure if I can get everything I need without some travel!

We use straw (always did when I was a kid) for litter and nesting. I doubt highly I will be able to find pine shavings within 60+ miles of here and I am sure shipping on such a large item would be too costly, however, I am going to see if and where pine shavings are available and go from there... but most likely we will have to continue to use straw.

Because the infestation is so severe (there were ALOT of eggs!), and even though I would prefer to stay organic (which is our personal goal for our family), I want these little boogers gone asap! So I am going to get some Seven Dust and Seven Spray (both 5%). I am also going to try and find some Permethrin spray and dust to re-treat in 10 days as I have read that using different products are more affective.

I will be asking my vet about the safety of using Ivomec/Ivermectin.. my main concern is if it is safe to eat the eggs as I have children who I will not risk, and I really do not want to have to throw away our eggs for a month since we have not bought store eggs since we got the chickens and I don't want to buy any ever again unless there is NO other choice, but I like the double benefit of worming the chickens also and hope that it can be used on a routine basis for parasites, internal and external!

I have considered using VCO, which I have on hand as we use it for cooking and topically, but... I am worried it will not be as affective with a severe infestation... I want every little bugger dead and not coming back any time soon and I don't think that spraying VCO just under their wings and around the vent area is going to be enough coverage to make me feel confident we are eliminating the problem.

I am really hoping that I can set up a preventive routine using Poulty Protector and Pyrethrin, wood ash, and DE and worming with Ivomec once I get rid of this infestation.

 

[leenie]

10 chickens would be manageable to coat with VCO. The VCO starts the fast kill on the eggs and lice immediately like the bucket of water on the wicked witch.


Wishing you fast and complete results on whichever course you decide to take.

 

[debir1966]

It is not that I doubt VCO would work, I just worry about the coverage on each individual chicken.

I was up way late last night reading post after post and link after link LOL. If I remember from the comments on this thread, you only spray the VCO under the wings and around the vent.. what if there are lice/mite/bug eggs in other places on the chicken?

I would want something to cover the entire chicken to make sure we got any little critters that may be there and I don't think my birds would appreciate a complete drenching in VCO! -- and not sure it would be good for them overall to be completely coated with oil - I am thinking the first time once goes for a dust bath, yeah, wow, = DIRTY BIRD! LOL

I am totally into using the VCO as a preventative - maybe spraying VCO around the vent and under the wings monthly (and it would be tempting to spray their legs and rub it on their combs also!).

I would prefer a 100% organic, 100% affective preventive program than having to use chemicals (sevens/permethrin) anywhere on our farm, especially since it is very important to our family to raise and grow our own non-GMO organic food. But right now I have 30 baby chicks and 5 baby turkeys coming in about 10 days and need to give these bugs the boot, big time!

I am still waiting to hear back from our vet this morning (he was busy when I called). I have located pine shavings for $7.69 a bale locally, but have been assured by a lady who has been raising chickens for over 30 years that straw is just fine under routine maintenance and prevention... she actually swears by DE, even as a treatment versus just as a preventative. And though her opinion weighs very heavily with me, I need to feel 100% confident that I am dealing with the problem in short order, and after reading so many conflicting opinions about DE being affective as a treatment, I wouldn't feel satsified just using it alone.

I am hoping that by encorporating organic preventive measures on a routine basis (wood ash, DE, pyrethrin, and even VCO) I will never have to deal with a severe infestation of unwanted house guests again!

 

[debir1966]

Just got off the phone with our vet and we will be using Sevins (been spelling it wrong the whole time LOL) dust on the birds and Sevins spray in the coop. I can't find it locally, so my Dad is picking some up for me at Walmart on his way home today.

Once I have the initial treatment done, the coop cleaned and treated, the birds dusted (I think I will add a small sprinkle to their run and to their main dust-bathing area), then I am hoping to maintain a bug free environment with DE sprinkled at every coop cleaning, DE and wood ash added to their dust-bath, and monthly spritzing of the coop with Poultry Protector or Pyrethrin spray. I am also going to do VCO on a regular basis, but have not figured out a schedule for that.

On a side note, our vet said we do not need to worm the hens, worms in poultry are not a problem where we are located, so I don't have to worry about getting any Ivermectin/Ivomec, so that is good news

I am going to start a new post about preventive maintenance. I have read hundreds of posts and the information is pretty scatterred out, so I am hoping to get a discussion started in one thread.

 

[suzette]

I've been dealing with a scaly leg mite problem and now think I should check for lice also. I read all the posts in this thread and was happy to find the suggestion of using coconut oil. (BTW you can buy virgin coconut oil, VCO, at Trader Joe's, probably cheaper than at a natural foods store.)
But you guys!!! Seven and permethrim kill bugs, ALL bugs, not just lice. Heard of the bee colony collapse? I would think backyard chicken keepers might be gardeners too and thus lovers of our essential pollinators = bees. PLEASE try alternate methods first! I would hate to think that the disappearance of the bees correlates with the rise of backyard chicken flocks. Wouldn't that be ironic, we want healthy eggs and then we give in to poison use after all?

 

[cochinqueen]

Ok my chickens have lice and I've tryed giving medicine that was subscribed by the vet. It seemed to work, but now the lice and mites have returned. I heard seven works well, but I also heard it doesn't get rid of the eggs, how do you get rid of those???????????? PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!