Lice

[brendaolson]

I'm pretty sure my hens have lice. There are little tan bugs on them. I bought two products today, hoping they would work. I have the MannaPro All Natural Poultry Protector spray and I also bought Permethrin Prozap Insectrin Dust. Is anyone familiar with these products or have another suggestion as to what would work better? I'm going to thoroughly clean out the coop tomorrow and disinfect the whole thing. Also, should I use bleach water to disinfect? Or would white vinegar do the trick? Thank you.

 

[Michael Apple]

The Poultry Protector won't do anything, so save your money and take it back. When you do take it back, get some Atroban EC or Permectrin II ( both emulsified concentrates) commonly sold at livestock supply businesses. You can dust your birds from the neck down, fluffing it in their feathers (wear a dust mask and do it in a well ventilated area). Atroban and Permectrin II can also be sprayed on poultry as well as premises, just pay attention to dilution rates on labels. You will have to do it again in 12 days.

If you treat birds, you must treat housing premises also. Remove all litter, mix solution of insecticide in a yard & garden sprayer, and spray down the floor, walls, all sides of roosts, cracks, crevices, and nest boxes. Let dry, add new litter, and allow birds to have access again. That will break the life cycle and prevent re-infestation.

Here's some reading about lice and mites:
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8162.pdf

 

[brendaolson]

Thanks for your advice! I treated my girls yesterday. On the package it says to wear gloves and a face mask. It didn't say anything about how long to wait before handling the birds again without gloves on. Also, I have an outside cat that likes to hang out with the hens. Will it harm the cat? Thank you.

 

[casibugg]

Hi there - I came to ask a similar question. We bought our farm about 2 years ago so I have no idea what could be "leftover" from the previous owners. We had a terrible flea infestation in the house. Goodness knows what is in the barn. Anyway, we had a Great Pyrenees who developed a bald spot from something in the barn last year. Now it is happening to the goat. I also noticed that some of the chickens feathers seemed to be missing in the front. The goats and chickens are not together. I dusted all the birds, goats, and their coop/hut with DE. The chickens seem to look a little better, the goats worse, and one of the hens just threw up.

I am still learning and relatively new to all this and I am just wondering what my next step should be. Do I get something stronger - Sevin Dust or the like? Call the Vet? Worm everything? Should I re-treat with DE and make sure we disinfect the coop and hut this weekend?

I am not sure if it is lice? Mites? or something else.

Thank you!

Cristie

 

[brendaolson]

I'm not sure what's causing them to lose fur and feathers. I figured out my hens had lice by holding one, then seeing a little tanish yellow bug come off on me. After inspecting my girls I discovered they had lice. They didn't match the description for mites. I would try to disinfect the whole coop. I've read to do two treatments of the powder. The second is 12 days after the first treatment. If you can't find out what's going on, I would call a vet.

 

[casibugg]

I am not sure if they have the same thing or different. From what I am reading it seems that my goats (and my dog previously) had burrowing mites. I did use some of their hay/straw from the barn in the chicken coop over the winter and am wondering if I inadvertently brought some to the chickens.

 

[brendaolson]

That's possible. Have you inspected the chickens and actually seen anything other than the missing feathers?

 

[casibugg]

I didn't see anything crawling on them and we individually picked up and dusted each one of them (there are 10). They just look rather "plucked" on the fronts. At first I thought maybe it was just that one had been picked on by the others but then others started to have the same problem. They are laying fine and seemed healthy overall apart from the feathers...until I just saw the one vomit this morning. We had a pretty rough winter here and they were confined to the coop for the past several months. I did open the door for them each day but they usually chose to stay inside. Their poop piled up quite a bit and froze. It was impossible to get out (I tried to break it up with a heavy shovel) until the thaw. We cleaned it out the first warm weekend.