My chickens are plucking and itching.. whats wrong? homemade mixtures?

[ChickenMama49]

My Speckled Sussex is itching and plucking her own feathers.... i heard of mites, lice but never really considered it ... my other chickens itch but not as bad as her.. Is there anything homemade that i can use on them directly?.. all option will be helpful..

thanks

 

[Kaelinstorm]

Do they free range to where they can dust bath and sun bathe? It helps keep the mite population down. My grandfather swore by throwing some soot out for them... Honestly dont know if thats all that healthy for the chickens lungs but *shrug* I just took mine in to the vet (expensive though) and got an Ivomec solution, started allowing the bird to free range for a little time per day and used an all natural spray from TSC in its enclosure. So far so good.

 

[ChickenMama49]

What was the all natural solution that you used?... was it the stuff from the vet?

 

[dawg53]

Use sevin dust, redust them in 10 days. Same with the inside of their house.

 

[ChickenMama49]

is Sevins Dust a pesticide or specifically for chickens?...

 

[sanfordmom]

Sevin Dust is sold in the garden dept. of your hardware or feed store. You can dust crops, flowers, as well as chickens. We have a problem with lice in our area and this had proved to be very effective. You can dust the chickens, sprinkle some in the areas of their dust baths, sprinkle some in the coop and the nest boxes. It will not hurt the chickens or the eggs.

 

[branston]

I have just dusted my chickens with DE. Also completely cleaned out the coop and dusted in there and added fresh bedding. Dusted the runs, put DE in the dust bath and around the outside of the coop and run. So far so good, but I believe the life cycle for the mites/lice is 3 weeks so I have to redust, every week for 3 weeks, I believe.

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Besides mites, could she be molting? Almost every single one of our Buff Orps are blowing feathers everywhere since they are in molt.