Please help with questions regarding lice & housing. I feel so awful.

[cmom]

dust your chickens with food grade diatomaceous earth, get it down to the skin, under wings, under legs, by vent, on back between wings, pretty much all over, they will be powdery for a day or so, but that stuff helps, also sprinkle throughout run, coop, nest boxes, and in any favorite dust bathing spots if they free range/pasture

 

[bantamgirl91]

Thank you very much everyone. I brought all five birds in and treated them all. They are all drinking water that has Poultry Cell in it and I've been giving more fresh greens and scrambled eggs in case the lice hurt them. Only one bird didn't seem herself. However, I think that she had a respiratory thing going on and I've started treating her with Tylan. We are 2.5 days into her Tylan and she looks sooo much better. They don't seem to mind living in the bathtub LOL.

We do live on four acres that's half woods and half meadow and their coop is right beside a stand of trees and bushes. However, it's the best place for them as there's not much yard. Where they are now shields them significantly from sun in the summer and blocks the view from the road. We have many predators, and many wild birds. I have moved all bird feeders to the front yard. On Saturday, I did a full very deep clean of their coop. And then I sprayed everything with liquid permethrin. I did 10 mL in a half gallon sprayer. Then I put down a bunch of zeolite (Sweet PDZ) and then their bedding. They get mulch in the run (the floor is lined with hardware cloth as we dealt with extremely dedicated predators) and I use aspen shavings in the coop/nest box portion. I will continue spraying down the coop every week for a month. It's been extremely cold here just in the last few days so I also wrapped the coop in plastic. My big birds do well without plastic but those little ones...I worry.

Should I still put down permethrin powder in the shavings? Do I still dust the birds with DE after spraying with permethrin? I made the spray for the birds much less concentrated. I sprayed under each wing, base of the neck, top of the tail, and above the vent.

I will show you guys pictures of my cute babies when I can.

 

[aart]

Forget the DE.
Retreat with permethrin in 7-10 days after first treatment.

 

[cmom]

Personally I wouldn't bother with the DE and use poultry dust instead. It has permethrin in it. I used DE and after a month the birds still looked terrible and had mites. That's when I found I still had some sevin dust and put that on them but there wasn't much left. After I did some researched for mites I found out that sevin dust was no longer approved for poultry so I bought poultry dust and saw that it had permethrin in it. It took awhile but the birds started looking better. I'm pretty sure if I had waited any longer I probably would have lost some birds they were in such terrible shape. I did initially spray the birds. It was getting colder out at the time so then I dusted them. They looked like powdered doughnuts when I finished but with the weekly thorough spraying in their coops, they improved. Since, I have had a couple of smaller outbreaks that I quickly addressed. There were no ill effects as far as the birds were concerned. I felt bad too that I was so ignorant at first and didn't check the birds sooner. Good luck...

 

[bantamgirl91]

Forget the DE.
Retreat with permethrin in 7-10 days after first treatment.

Is it okay to re-treat more than once or will it hurt my birds?

 

[bantamgirl91]

Personally I wouldn't bother with the DE and use poultry dust instead. It has permethrin in it. I used DE and after a month the birds still looked terrible and had mites. That's when I found I still had some sevin dust and put that on them but there wasn't much left. After I did some researched for mites I found out that sevin dust was no longer approved for poultry so I bought poultry dust and saw that it had permethrin in it. It took awhile but the birds started looking better. I'm pretty sure if I had waited any longer I probably would have lost some birds they were in such terrible shape. I did initially spray the birds. It was getting colder out at the time so then I dusted them. They looked like powdered doughnuts when I finished but with the weekly thorough spraying in their coops, they improved. Since, I have had a couple of smaller outbreaks that I quickly addressed. There were no ill effects as far as the birds were concerned. I felt bad too that I was so ignorant at first and didn't check the birds sooner. Good luck...

Yes I feel lucky that I caught it before they were seriously damaged by the lice. I am also fortunate that the bantams are so small and my boyfriend is so tolerant that he is letting them live indoors for now so I can spray them as needed without chilling them!

 

[cmom]

You need to treat weekly for awhile because it does not kill the past eggs. Give it a chance to work. I also put poultry dust in the nest boxes.

 

[cmom]

I already posted this but If you want to bathe your birds, every over-the-counter (OTC) treatment for head lice contains either pyrethrins (Rid or Triple X) or permethrin (Nix). They are effective treatment. Both only kill live pests, not the pests eggs. I'm sure they have something similar where you live.

 

[cmom]

Not really similar to a sinking boat.....those bugs are blood suckers.

For mine I think killing the little blood suckers would be first and fixing access from transport critters would be step two.

The first thing that needs to be treated are the birds, especially if they have a severe infestation, and this is because a severe infestation of lice or mites can be life-threatening. Treat birds first, always, then worry about the other stuff. View attachment 2006707

Both need to be done. Why fuss over which gets done first?

I agree with these posts. I would also deal with the lice/mites first then concentrate on how they were introduced.

 

[aart]

You need to treat weekly for awhile because it does not kill the past eggs.

Agrees....2-3 times then wait and keep a very close eye(daily) for any live bugs.