For general information for anyone who comes across this older thread, permethrin is in my opinion a good way to eliminate mites or lice. Permethrin is my go to treatment. It has worked well for me. I have posted this before. I have tried many different things in the past including DE. I have used poultry dust on the birds and in their nest boxes and sprayed inside of the coops, every crack and crevice, on and under the roosts, ceiling, walls, floors, anywhere the pests can hide. It's best to clean out the coop before you spray. I use pine shavings in my coops. I wear special clothing including a mask and gloves. I do weekly sprayings for awhile and put permethrin dust in the nest boxes, originally I sprayed the birds getting under the wings and worked it through their feathers with gloves which you can also do with the dust. If you dust the birds, do it until they look like a powdered doughnut. Permethrin only kill live pests, not the pests eggs. TSC and Amazon carries the permethrin powder, premixed spray bottles and the concentrate. I use the concentrate. It did not affect the birds but I did keep them out of the coops while it dried. I spray my coops as needed and when I spray I do weekly spraying for 3 or 4 weeks then stop as I don't want the pests to develop a resistance to the permethrin. Repeated weekly spraying is necessary because again, it does not kill the pests eggs and as an added benefit is there is no egg withdrawal period. There are other products available but much more expensive, and in my opinion the permethrin works great. Because I have several coops, when I treat I treat all of the coops with a backpack spray but a gallon garden sprayer works good too. I like the wands for getting into the hard to reach areas like cracks and crevices where some of the mites like to hide. Here is a great chart made by a BYC member for the different strengths of permethrin and the mixture rates. I usually use the 0.5%. If you ever have issues with flies it also works for eliminating them.
