Sadly we have suddenly lost two of our laying hens. I just dropped the second one off at the vet for a postmortem examination. The one thing we do know is that upon their deaths both birds were seriously infested with some sort of mite/other pest. The vet wants me to dust the rest of that flock with a poultry dust tonight to start treating the other coop mates. I've never had this happen before and didn't know they even had a pest problem-they look and act just fine. I even checked my flock after losing the first bird and didn't see anything on them then.
So here's where I need help.
What do I use and how do I do it? The vet said to use a poultry dust or seven powder. I have some seven powder but I don't even use that stuff on my garden so I'm quite nervous about using it on my hens. She said just dusting them with it should be sufficient and then repeat it in a few days. Should we throw the eggs out for a few days after doing the dusting? We try to do things as naturally as possible but I need to do something quickly to get rid of these pests.
What can i use to treat the coop? I assume I should not only do a complete coop cleaning but should treat the coop in some way?
How can I try to prevent this from happening again? I've never had a flock get infested like this before.
Should I treat my neighboring coops (one is more hens and the other is ducks)? Both deaths have been from the same coop but the others aren't very far away.
Should I move my bird feeders? They've been out there in the same yard for years but I read the hens can catch some of these pests from the wild birds.
Does brewer's yeast do anything mixed into my hens feed to either get rid of or prevent infestation? One of my books mentioned it as a possible treatment and I do have some on hand.
I do have a container of Red Earth if it might be of any use in this situation.
Anything else I should know. Thanks so much for the help. Hopefully we can get these girls debugged quickly and the postmortem comes back with nothing more serious going on.
So here's where I need help.
What do I use and how do I do it? The vet said to use a poultry dust or seven powder. I have some seven powder but I don't even use that stuff on my garden so I'm quite nervous about using it on my hens. She said just dusting them with it should be sufficient and then repeat it in a few days. Should we throw the eggs out for a few days after doing the dusting? We try to do things as naturally as possible but I need to do something quickly to get rid of these pests.
What can i use to treat the coop? I assume I should not only do a complete coop cleaning but should treat the coop in some way?
How can I try to prevent this from happening again? I've never had a flock get infested like this before.
Should I treat my neighboring coops (one is more hens and the other is ducks)? Both deaths have been from the same coop but the others aren't very far away.
Should I move my bird feeders? They've been out there in the same yard for years but I read the hens can catch some of these pests from the wild birds.
Does brewer's yeast do anything mixed into my hens feed to either get rid of or prevent infestation? One of my books mentioned it as a possible treatment and I do have some on hand.
I do have a container of Red Earth if it might be of any use in this situation.
Anything else I should know. Thanks so much for the help. Hopefully we can get these girls debugged quickly and the postmortem comes back with nothing more serious going on.
