My 40 chickens have lice or mites...

[Andora]

I noticed my chickens have almost invisible flesh colored things crawling around on them. They are very, very tiny and hard to notice. I'm sure they are from wild birds--I've noticed a lot of wild birds around their pens recently.

I sell eggs. I get one to two dozen eggs a day! I don't know if I can afford to throw all those eggs away after treating them. Is there any way to easily treat birds without wasting their eggs?

I also can't figure out if we have lice or mites. I've read that Exprinex PourOn doesn't go through eggs, meat, or milk but it might not be effective against lice. I want to treat them soon but I am so confused over the choices. Sevin dust is cancerous and kind of freaks me out, plus it will be hard to dust 40+ birds. A few of them don't like to be touched, and some of them are chicks. Once four years ago we had lice and I tried DE. It didn't help at all.

I would appreciate any advice!

 

[Andora]

One more thing to add: They are bedded on straw with the deep litter method in big pens. I have no idea how to get rid of lice or mites in that!

 

[AlienChick]

I have had complete success with sprinkling everything with DE.

I had an outbreak of mites once when I had a broody hen hatch some eggs.

The nest was filled with the mites and they were crawling all over the babies.

I sprinkled the babies and threw out the bedding and sprinkled DE onto the new bedding.

I dusted the broody hen, too.

I noticed dead mites all around the box the next day and I never had a mite problem since.

Since it's non-toxic, you don't have to worry about throwing out your eggs you need to sell.

ALSO, straw is known to be a very good hiding place for parasites (they like to hide inside the hollow straw).

I would definitely switch from straw to shavings or hay.

Good luck!

 

[AlienChick]

I use a kitchen sifter to apply the DE to the coop and bedding.

I put some in an old sock and used that to dust the chickens.
Makes it real easy to dust underneath their wings and their bums.

 

[Andora]

When I tried DE before during an outbreak a few years ago it didn't work at all! Maybe I'll give it another try. I used to sprinkle it regularly in their bedding for odor but I ran out a month ago and didn't have money to buy another big bag. Maybe it's not a coincidence they just got lice or mites.

I can't do the shavings in their runs because I would need like a million bags...I've got to cover about 200 feet!

 

[AlienChick]

Oh, I didn't know the straw was in the run.
Hmmm . . . Is the run outside? On grass/dirt?
Can you just leave it as dirt?
All of my runs are on dirt.
However, during the fall I'll toss in a pile of fallen leaves.
And whenever we mow the grass, I'll toss in the dried grass clippings.
They enjoy the dirt, though, because they can dust bathe (which also keeps the bugs off).
Can you provide a pic of your set up?

By the way, I LOVE your photographs! Awesome photography skills.

 

[dawg53]

I noticed my chickens have almost invisible flesh colored things crawling around on them. They are very, very tiny and hard to notice. I'm sure they are from wild birds--I've noticed a lot of wild birds around their pens recently.

I sell eggs. I get one to two dozen eggs a day! I don't know if I can afford to throw all those eggs away after treating them. Is there any way to easily treat birds without wasting their eggs?

I also can't figure out if we have lice or mites. I've read that Exprinex PourOn doesn't go through eggs, meat, or milk but it might not be effective against lice. I want to treat them soon but I am so confused over the choices. Sevin dust is cancerous and kind of freaks me out, plus it will be hard to dust 40+ birds. A few of them don't like to be touched, and some of them are chicks. Once four years ago we had lice and I tried DE. It didn't help at all.

I would appreciate any advice!

We've been using sevin dust since the 60's in our vegetable gardens, on my chickens and in their coops when I started raising chickens again about 9 years ago. I'm still here typing. I have always used hay for bedding in the coops and lightly sprinkle sevin dust on the hay and pat it down to settle, nests included. I had one lice problem when I brought in a White Rock rooster and placed him in quarantine in a cage away from the coops. Sevin dust took care of the feather lice right away.