One sad little chicken (and my hen is upset too!)

[deacons]

Twice since Saturday, when Andy died, I have seen her come down out of the roost to eat and drink, so at least she's able to do that much. Otherwise, though, she is staying in the roost 24/7. Poor chicken!

I bet she's just nervous being out alone. They really do feel safer with the flock

How long will the new chickens need to stay in the coop to recognize it as "home"? I read that birds sometimes get along better when they free-range together, and ours can go out all day if they want, but I don't want them to get lost because they don't know the coop is their home. Any suggestions on the timing of that?

I'm a bit of a nervous nelly, so I waited 3-4 days before letting the pullets out to free range (much to the annoyance of the "big girls," who had to stay in lockdown with them). I'd probably start by letting them out towards the end of the day, so they want to get back home to roost. In the days before you let them out, I might try to teach them the sound of shaking a cup with scratch/feed in it. Mine are all pretty well trained to come at the shake of a plastic cup full of scratch. At nightime though, I don't have to lure them back, they know where home is and come on their own.

 

[begood]

Thanks so much, deacons!

Andy and Red stayed very close to the house (the deck, the garage, the driveway), so in that way, I guess Andy did have some leadership skills. After Brad got eaten by a fox in the woods, she seemed to realize "woods bad! yard good!"

And then Red is afraid of the grass, so Andy dutifully hung out with her in the driveway, and on the deck, and in the garage...

They both went by themselves back to the coop between 4 -5 pm every day. They'd have a bite to eat, then go up to the roost on their own.

I do know that they both took dust baths, because we saw them do it. Andy would flick dirt on my daughter with her wings, which I read was not a bad thing, but that she was trying to clean her?

Lots of personality, that Andy. I miss her.

 

[begood]

UPDATE:

So my husband did The Big Coop Clean yesterday. He burned the old shavings and straw, used the shop vac to super clean the roost, and sprayed permethrin spray all over the roost and the wood frame of the coop. Then, when it was dry, he sprinkled poultry dust on the floor of the coop and the roost and put all wood shavings down in both places - no more straw.

He added poultry dust and wood ash to the dust bath area, and we're going to work on creating a dust bath inside the coop, since poor Red really seems to just want to stay there.

He could not get hold of her to dust under her wings or her vent area. The spray he used said to use it in a "fine mist" over the chicken, so he did that. He got about five good sprays in - one on each side, one on her backside, and and one over each wing.

A little while later, he could see "skinny white things" crawling on her.

I think they were probably poultry lice, not mites. He saw nothing red or black or grey, just the white crawling things.

Today, he went out to check and saw nothing crawling on her - I guess it can take awhile for the spray to work?

He's going to do the whole thing all over again next weekend.

I know it would be better if he could catch the chicken and apply the dust directly on the spots, but that doesn't seem likely. Lord, she is skittish!

My hope is that the spray will help, and the poultry dust will help, and getting her a dust bath inside the coop will help.

He's hesitant to order more chickens now that he's actually seen creepy-crawlies on her. I know lice are common and probably NOT what did poor Andy in.

So that's where we are today.

 

[TwoCrows]

Yes, you will need to repeat this procedure every 5 days to kill the tiny livestock. You need to get it right down to the skin, not just on top. But all over the bird is best. Get the entire bird at the skin, top of the feathers, everywhere. And do the coop, roost bars, underneath the roost bars and nest boxes. Repeat this as well in the coop every 5 days. It takes a couple applications to get them all. Just be very thorough when applying the meds. You should get this under control in a couple weeks. I would continue this for one month and then each month give the coop a really good cleaning to make sure they are not coming back.

Lice can be hard to find on the birds too. So look them over occasionally to make sure you got them all.

Great job! Keep this up and you should have this fixed up in no time!

 

[deacons]

Yes, great start. It sure is a pain to go through all the necessary steps.

To catch Red, I would try to grab her from the roosting bar just after she's gone to bed for the night-she may still put up a fight, but in my experience, the best time to grab them is right as they're going to roost when it's semi-dark. I got some good advice to try the "football hold"- i.e., with the bird facing you, scoop her up under your right arm and holding her against your side with your upper arm/elbow, so she is facing behind you with her wings firmly against your side so she can't flap away. This will allow you to spray around her vent area (really important in infestations). Then, depending on how well you can control her, it might actually be easiest to place her in a standing position back on the roost to spray underneath the wings. I try to hold firmly with one hand on the "shoulder" area- i.e., base of neck/between wings and gently lift one wing at a time to spray underneath, where they also like to collect. Are you using the Poultry Protector for this purpose? When I had mites, I didn't find it really was that effective to kill existing bugs- I think it might be ok for prevention, but most of what I read said it wasn't strong enough if you actually saw bugs on the birds. For that, I would use the "permethrin-dust-in-a-stocking" approach, and "powder" them in all the key areas as though you were using a makeup powder puff. But if you're spraying on your permethrin liquid, that should be good!

Good luck!

I can't remember, are you still planning on getting some new girls to join Red?

 

[begood]

Thanks, friends!

The spray is FlyRid Plus, which is a .5% permethrin spray that is supposed to be safe to use directly on the chickens as well as their habitats.

Our problem with Red is that we can't get close enough to her to touch her, and our roost is so hard to get to that we can't do that approach - getting her in the semidark after she's gone into the roost.

And she has super sharp claws, and to be brutally honest, neither of us wants to tuck her under our arm in a football hold even if we could get her! My hope was that he could get her, grab her feet, and put her on her back to dust her, but that didn't work. Like, at all. And she finally ran from him and wouldn't come out from under the car for hours.

I know we may have to do... something else.

The poultry dust we got is a .25% permethrin. I got the stocking to put it in, but we never got far enough in the process to even try using it directly on the chicken. So while we made some progress, we didn't get any medications all the way down to the chicken's skin. Is all the rest of the treatment useless without that?

My husband doesn't want to introduce any new chickens until he feels like we've got a handle on the pest situation. But if we can't treat the actual chicken, I don't know how we'll ever get to that point. *SIGH*

 

[TwoCrows]

I have heard of putting them in a giant garbage bag with dust all inside of it. Keep the chickens head out of the top of the bag and fluff the bag around to get the dust to poof around. You may just need to hold her down on the ground. One person holding her by the feet and neck and the other armed with the powders or sprays and just get her good with it.

Good luck!

 

[begood]

I have heard of putting them in a giant garbage bag with dust all inside of it. Keep the chickens head out of the top of the bag and fluff the bag around to get the dust to poof around. You may just need to hold her down on the ground. One person holding her by the feet and neck and the other armed with the powders or sprays and just get her good with it.

Good luck!

Another forum member suggested the garbage bag thing too, so we might try that! I appreciate the suggestions. I think we can immobilize her if we can just get our mitts on her. It's going to be a two-person job, though, and I am SUPER bug phobic so I'd need to figure out how to do it without losing my mind! I was perfectly fine having chickens as long as I didn't have to literally touch them, and this is not just that, but touching a chicken I KNOW HAS BUGS on her. *shudder* I got a coverall and some gloves, so I can do it. I can. I don't want to, but I can. I think our best bet is to close the roost door and corner her in the coop. I know it will stress out an already stressed hen, but I don't think I can, in good conscience, add new chickens until we fully address whatever's crawling on the one we already have.

 

[TwoCrows]

Quote: LOL..You are too funny with the bug phobic comments. Ha!

You might try to get her in the dark while on the roost bar. Go in after dark grab her and take her to a lit area and do the work on her.

I think ivermectin pour on works on lice. I know it works on mites.

You might contact Dawg53 about this. He knows all about what things do what here and how to apply them....https://www.backyardchickens.com/u/19157/dawg53