Mites or Lice? Or both?

[feasibleweasel]

First post! lmao

Anyway, this started weeks ago that I noticed that my smallest girl, Peepsy, wasn't looking too hot. The skin on her face is all cracked and somewhat puffy. She's going through her molt (at least I hope so) but she's also been picking at herself and I see a lot of white dots on her feathers. Unfortunately I don't have pictures because she doesn't let me get close to her. All my chickens hate being picked up or touched. How I got Peepsy for my profile picture is a wonder!

I know for a fact we have/had a mite problem. I've seen them crawling on my hand and today I cleaned out the entire coop, top to bottom, scrubbed, used vinegar for disinfectant, and then put anti-mite powder everywhere. I'll be checking daily for the mite problem and doing extra cleaning etc as needed.

But now my question is: Could we also have lice? And if yes, how do I take care of them? I saw something relatively big (between 1/4 and 1/2 inch) crawling on a different chicken, Lola and then I realized that 7 out of my 9 chickens are routinely scratching themselves, picking and biting. Lola and Peepsy also have little "holes" in their breasts where they picked out all the feathers.

My plan from here is to routinely check for bugs after today's big cleanup. I also set up a dust bath area with special sand to make sure the girls can get dusty despite all the rain we have. And I'm changing their diet to add more vitamins and nutrients in addition to the basic corn and seed we give them (oats, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, linseed, broccoli, spinach, cooked beans, etc.) and I've added for the moment a small amount of colloidal silver to their water and considered adding crushed garlic and/or apple cider vinegar. As a newbie I also want to ask if this is a good idea. I tend to overdo things when I get concerned and I don't want to be giving my chickens something that won't help at all.

Sorry for all the typing! TL;DR my chickens pick at themselves, I treated today for mites. Could they also have lice? If yes, recommendations please?

 

[apryl29]

My chickens had mites recently. Here's the post I put up and the responses that were very helpful. There's some info about identifying whether it's mites or lice that you may find helpful. Good luck!
The trick is really to clean the coop well, and then repeat the cleaning about a week later to kill any recently eggs that hatched, then again about a week later. Bag or burn the bedding so the birds don't find the discard pile and accidentally reinvest themselves.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mites.1197698/#post-18953063

 

[coach723]

Here is a link with pictures to help you identify lice/mites, and some treatment options. Permethrin or spinosad are the most common ingredients for treatment. Cleaning the coop is only one step, you will have to treat the birds too. To examine them it may be easiest to go out after dark when they are roosting, pick them up one at a time and go over them with a flashlight or other good light source so you can see. They may not like it but they are calmer and easier to catch while roosting. Some mites only come out at night while roosting also. The exam is necessary. If treatment is necessary then I would do the same, but start before daylight and do the same way, one at a time off the roosts, close them in the coop and remove and do one at a time. If you do have an infestation then treating the coop and the birds is necessary to get rid of them, otherwise you are just going to go round and round.
Here's the link: http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/08/poultry-lice-and-mites-identification.html