NPM only on silkies—for now?

[ljkraemer]

Hello,
We have a suburban backyard flock of 6 hens. 4 are 2.5 years old, 2 Easter egger, 1 polish, 1 Wyandotte, and 2 4 month old silkie/Cochin mixes. Prior to getting the silkie Pullets a month ago, we have never had pest issues. After 2 weeks of having the silkies, they had lice. I treated them with an elector psp bath and checked the other girls am and pm, and never saw evidence of lice, so ended up not treating them. The love was eliminated on the silkies with the elector psp bath. Now here we are two weeks later, I’m holding one of the silkies and I have a black sweatshirt on, and I notice once I put her back, that I have a handful of crawling bugs on me. At first I thought, oh the lice is back. Upon Further inspection with my microscope, it is not lice this time, but northern poultry mite. I have checked the other birds and only the other silkie has it. I believe I caught it at the early stage as there are no eggs on feather shafts anywhere on the silkies. Today I cleaned the coop, vacuumed it, sprinkled it with DE, put fresh wood shavings down in the run (we’ve had rain for almost 4 days straight so it was damp in there), sprinkled PDZ, sprinkled this low percentage permethrin poultry dust I had on hand (.25%) on all the wood framing of the run, and dusted the silkies with that same permethrin dust. I have being delivered later today: 10% permethrin solution and a gallon garden sprayer, and coming tomorrow: elector psp. Can anyone advise based on experience or knowledge, should I use elector psp or permethrin on the wood parts of the run/coop? Should I give ALL the birds an elector psp bath? If I do that, can I save that liquid? It seems like a good way to throw a good chunk of $155 of elector psp down the drain. How soon again should I do the cleaning and spraying of ___? Do I even need to spray the coop if it’s NPM as they live on the bird and not on the wood? (I bought both elector psp and permethrin to make sure none of these mites survive.). I’ve read a million posts, probably too many, but I decided to post my question bc a. I feel like I caught this very early and b. Not all of my flock is affected, (yet).

Side question, does anyone know why the silkies keep on getting pests? Is this normal? Will it keep happening?

Thanks everyone for any advice. I appreciate it!!

 

[Debbie292d]

Hello,
We have a suburban backyard flock of 6 hens. 4 are 2.5 years old, 2 Easter egger, 1 polish, 1 Wyandotte, and 2 4 month old silkie/Cochin mixes. Prior to getting the silkie Pullets a month ago, we have never had pest issues. After 2 weeks of having the silkies, they had lice. I treated them with an elector psp bath and checked the other girls am and pm, and never saw evidence of lice, so ended up not treating them. The love was eliminated on the silkies with the elector psp bath. Now here we are two weeks later, I’m holding one of the silkies and I have a black sweatshirt on, and I notice once I put her back, that I have a handful of crawling bugs on me. At first I thought, oh the lice is back. Upon Further inspection with my microscope, it is not lice this time, but northern poultry mite. I have checked the other birds and only the other silkie has it. I believe I caught it at the early stage as there are no eggs on feather shafts anywhere on the silkies. Today I cleaned the coop, vacuumed it, sprinkled it with DE, put fresh wood shavings down in the run (we’ve had rain for almost 4 days straight so it was damp in there), sprinkled PDZ, sprinkled this low percentage permethrin poultry dust I had on hand (.25%) on all the wood framing of the run, and dusted the silkies with that same permethrin dust. I have being delivered later today: 10% permethrin solution and a gallon garden sprayer, and coming tomorrow: elector psp. Can anyone advise based on experience or knowledge, should I use elector psp or permethrin on the wood parts of the run/coop? Should I give ALL the birds an elector psp bath? If I do that, can I save that liquid? It seems like a good way to throw a good chunk of $155 of elector psp down the drain. How soon again should I do the cleaning and spraying of ___? Do I even need to spray the coop if it’s NPM as they live on the bird and not on the wood? (I bought both elector psp and permethrin to make sure none of these mites survive.). I’ve read a million posts, probably too many, but I decided to post my question bc a. I feel like I caught this very early and b. Not all of my flock is affected, (yet).

Side question, does anyone know why the silkies keep on getting pests? Is this normal? Will it keep happening?

Thanks everyone for any advice. I appreciate it!!

You can use both of those on the coop, just do it when the chickens aren't in there and let it dry before letting them back in. I do not know the shelf life of either one when mixed, but usually things mixed are to be used in 24 hours. It should say on the bottles though. I've never used either of those products for chickens, but permethrin is a long time known product that kills bugs. I've heard good things about elector PSP too, and my understanding is you also can spray the birds and the entire coop with it.

Another thing is when you treat one chicken for lice or mites, treat all of them.

We've only had silkies for many years, and were told from the start to sprinkle DE in the coop, nests, and dust baths every two weeks. I was faithful except a couple of years ago and they got scaly leg mites.

I think you're going to beat this once and for all! Good luck!

P.S. If your coop is getting damp, you might want to consider using horse bedding pellets or something else as they'll get sick if the humidity is to the point of being damp in there. We've used them for many years and it keeps the coop dry and odor free with zero maintenance but once a year we change them out.