Mites or Lice?

[Chick2chicken]

Okay so I'm doing another post on this because the last thing I did to try and fix this didn't work. My chickens are loosing feathers around their vents and their vents look a bit red. I read this post https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/feather-loss-red-around-the-vent-pics-posted.192598/.
And my chickens look exactly like those photos. Continue reading I found out that is that I should give them probiotics and vitamins in their food. Do any of you use a certain type of probiotic or brand of vitamins because this is my first time ussing anything else in my chicken food so I don't really know what to use.I've checked for mice an lice but haven't found anything.
Here is some more information
food
I'm giving them 16% hen pellets 24/7 so they can eat that whenever they want.
18% scratch mixed with Bird seed and oyster shells. About 2 cups of that mixture every morning.
And then any food scraps I may have.
Poop
Normal poop.
Weather
Rain Rain and more Rain.
How I'm fixing the rain
Today is the day I'm getting rid of the rain in my coop.
I'm ussing tarps and sand and am going to move the chickens to place the new tarps and sand.

Thanks so much for your help please reply if you know anything that would help a lot.
Thank you in advance
Chick2chicken

 

[happyhens1972]

I'd be inclined to treat for parasites as you just may not be seeing them. I use Ivermectin pour on, about half a dozen drops per bird.

 

[Chick2chicken]

Thanks Ivermectin isn't in stock online right now so is there any other kind of dust or oil that can treat lice and mites safely?

 

[happyhens1972]

They can be treated with Diatomaceous Earth or permethrin (ant) powder. The former is totally organic and has no egg withdrawal. The latter, I'm not sure on withdrawal, you'd have to look it up xx

 

[canalcolt]

Have u picked up the chicken and see tiny black dots on your hand? That's how I found out my chickens have mites.
also one of my hens had gotten a red butt like that from trying to sit on the eggs all day

 

[canalcolt]

They can be treated with Diatomaceous Earth or permethrin (ant) powder. The former is totally organic and has no egg withdrawal. The latter, I'm not sure on withdrawal, you'd have to look it up xx

I've been using DE and it seems like it's helping.. just wish rain and snow would stop! I put DE where they like to do dust baths and sprinkled where they roost and I've put some on the chickens backs.

 

[lilmillefleur]

Use permethrin dust in their dust bath area. That should help.

 

[Chick2chicken]

I've been using DE and it seems like it's helping.. just wish rain and snow would stop! I put DE where they like to do dust baths and sprinkled where they roost and I've put some on the chickens backs.

Last week I dusted everything in DE, the coop the run and the area where they dust bath there was no change so I'm going to look into permethrin.

 

[happyhens1972]

DE is great stuff but it does require the louse or mite to be physically coated in it to have any effect, therefore some can get missed. The good thing with ivermectin is that it is systemic so it gets the bugs when they feed!

 

[canalcolt]

Last week I dusted everything in DE, the coop the run and the area where they dust bath there was no change so I'm going to look into permethrin.

Post how that goes. I'm looking into that as well . I'm glad we have a spot where we can swap information on chickens.