Little Tala Bug
Songster
Hi BYC!
I want to post a recommendation for a pest powder that I recently used for a lice infestations and was very happy with. https://www.flytesofancy.co.uk/products/battles-poultry-red-mite-powder-500g
Since permethrin isn't approved for use directly on birds here in the UK, I tried this alternative which contained Eucalyptus Citriodora powder as the active ingredient.
I was a bit skeptical because of some things I had read on here about non-permethrin-based treatments, but after researching a fair bit, and seeing that this powder was also used industrially here in the UK, I decided to try it.
My flock of 25 was pretty infested with lice, and there was a small red mite breakout in one of our three coops. We have three "tribes" of chickens. Two adult tribes and one gaggle of 3 month old youngsters.
All the chickens showed some louse infestation, but the babies had just a few each and no egg clusters. Some of our larger girls had SO MANY egg clusters on the base of their tail and vent feathers. Every single adult had tons of live adult lice on them as well. A couple of the chickens were particularly heavily infested, which is how we discovered the problem in the first place; our white leghorn was so bad that her comb went pale and floppy and started to darken at the tips (she perked up a lot after treatment).
We started by thoroughly cleaning out the coops, scrubbing them with soap and water, and then spraying them thoroughly with Net Tex Total Mite Kill, which is a permethrin-based spray approved for poultry housing in the UK.
Next, we waited until the chickens were in bed for the night and got them from the coop. I trimmed as many egg clusters as I could off the bases of their feathers and applied the mite powder all over, focusing on the vent, tail, neck, and under the wings.
It had been extremely wet weather, so I feared that one of the reasons for such a heavy infestation was that the chickens weren't able to effectively dust bath for several weeks. I tackled that problem by getting a weatherproof plastic dog house and a large plastic tray to put inside of it. I filled the tray with pine needles and pine soil from under some local trees (their favourite dust-bath substrate), making sure to harvest it from trees they had not had access to. I let it dry out a wee bit in the house, mixed a small amount of DE and wood ash into it, and sprinkled some finely-diced lavender, oregano, mint, rosemary, and chives from the garden through it with a few drops of geranium and eucalyptus essential oil. I put it back in the yard after I had treated all of the chickens.
We intended on treating them again in a week, but life got in the way and it ended up being more than two weeks later. I feared that the remaining egg clusters would have hatched and we would be back at square one, but I was pleasantly surprised... every single chicken was completely louse-free!!! I inspected them very thoroughly and only one hen had egg clusters at the base of her feathers, which might have just been holdovers from the last treatment.
We had already cleaned their coops out throughly during the day, sprayed net tex, replaced all bedding, and then repeated the nighttime procedure of grabbing the hens when they were sleepy, inspecting under tails, vents, wings, and neck feathers for live adult lice, and scanning the base of the feather shafts for egg clusters. I powdered the birds again just for good measure, and I sprayed an oil-based eucalyptus and geranium treatment on the few egg clusters we saw. I will inspect the hen with the egg clusters again soon, just to make sure the treatment was definitely effective, but overall I am extremely pleased with the result.
Also the red mite that had started in one coop seems to have died off. The net tex seems pretty effective for that job as it is quite sticky and oily and makes a very inhospitable environment for them to transit across the roosting bars. We heavily doused the perch ends and make sure to spray every possible crevice of the entire coop, including the roof and the outside. I haven't seen a single mite since the first treatment, but will continue to spray the perch bars, focusing on the ends, for a couple weeks just to be sure.
***
TLDR: After spraying coops with Net Tex Total Mite Kill, and treating chickens directly with Battles Poultry Red Mite Powder, out of 25 chickens at varying stages of infestation, there were zero live adult lice, no signs of mites, and only one hen with any traces of eggs.
I want to post a recommendation for a pest powder that I recently used for a lice infestations and was very happy with. https://www.flytesofancy.co.uk/products/battles-poultry-red-mite-powder-500g
Since permethrin isn't approved for use directly on birds here in the UK, I tried this alternative which contained Eucalyptus Citriodora powder as the active ingredient.
I was a bit skeptical because of some things I had read on here about non-permethrin-based treatments, but after researching a fair bit, and seeing that this powder was also used industrially here in the UK, I decided to try it.
My flock of 25 was pretty infested with lice, and there was a small red mite breakout in one of our three coops. We have three "tribes" of chickens. Two adult tribes and one gaggle of 3 month old youngsters.
All the chickens showed some louse infestation, but the babies had just a few each and no egg clusters. Some of our larger girls had SO MANY egg clusters on the base of their tail and vent feathers. Every single adult had tons of live adult lice on them as well. A couple of the chickens were particularly heavily infested, which is how we discovered the problem in the first place; our white leghorn was so bad that her comb went pale and floppy and started to darken at the tips (she perked up a lot after treatment).
We started by thoroughly cleaning out the coops, scrubbing them with soap and water, and then spraying them thoroughly with Net Tex Total Mite Kill, which is a permethrin-based spray approved for poultry housing in the UK.
Next, we waited until the chickens were in bed for the night and got them from the coop. I trimmed as many egg clusters as I could off the bases of their feathers and applied the mite powder all over, focusing on the vent, tail, neck, and under the wings.
It had been extremely wet weather, so I feared that one of the reasons for such a heavy infestation was that the chickens weren't able to effectively dust bath for several weeks. I tackled that problem by getting a weatherproof plastic dog house and a large plastic tray to put inside of it. I filled the tray with pine needles and pine soil from under some local trees (their favourite dust-bath substrate), making sure to harvest it from trees they had not had access to. I let it dry out a wee bit in the house, mixed a small amount of DE and wood ash into it, and sprinkled some finely-diced lavender, oregano, mint, rosemary, and chives from the garden through it with a few drops of geranium and eucalyptus essential oil. I put it back in the yard after I had treated all of the chickens.
We intended on treating them again in a week, but life got in the way and it ended up being more than two weeks later. I feared that the remaining egg clusters would have hatched and we would be back at square one, but I was pleasantly surprised... every single chicken was completely louse-free!!! I inspected them very thoroughly and only one hen had egg clusters at the base of her feathers, which might have just been holdovers from the last treatment.
We had already cleaned their coops out throughly during the day, sprayed net tex, replaced all bedding, and then repeated the nighttime procedure of grabbing the hens when they were sleepy, inspecting under tails, vents, wings, and neck feathers for live adult lice, and scanning the base of the feather shafts for egg clusters. I powdered the birds again just for good measure, and I sprayed an oil-based eucalyptus and geranium treatment on the few egg clusters we saw. I will inspect the hen with the egg clusters again soon, just to make sure the treatment was definitely effective, but overall I am extremely pleased with the result.
Also the red mite that had started in one coop seems to have died off. The net tex seems pretty effective for that job as it is quite sticky and oily and makes a very inhospitable environment for them to transit across the roosting bars. We heavily doused the perch ends and make sure to spray every possible crevice of the entire coop, including the roof and the outside. I haven't seen a single mite since the first treatment, but will continue to spray the perch bars, focusing on the ends, for a couple weeks just to be sure.
***
TLDR: After spraying coops with Net Tex Total Mite Kill, and treating chickens directly with Battles Poultry Red Mite Powder, out of 25 chickens at varying stages of infestation, there were zero live adult lice, no signs of mites, and only one hen with any traces of eggs.
