You & I both! I feel like beating my head against a wall. & all it is, is one chicken out of a total of 31 that has a bald, red, butt!
For external parasites, since they were about 2 1/2 months old I've put DE in their dust bath area in their stall. It's always in there. So many people swear by that as a preventative, but the more reading I'm doing, I've found a lot also say that it can be bad for their lungs as well. So right now I'm thinking about rotating a couple of times a year between the DE, & the permethrin dust. I've read a few others that use the UltraShield EX (Permethrin 0.50%, Pyrethris 0.10%, Piperonyl Butoxide 1.00%)
http://ameraucana.org/forum/index.php?topic=1968.0 ,
https://www.facebook.com/Absorbine/posts/10152256363820193. Did any insect build a resistance to it? Maybe. I'd hope that only spraying their stall & nesting boxes 3-4 times a year with it wasn't enough to build a resistance. I also use the poultry protector,
http://www.mannapro.com/products/poultry/poultry-protector/, especially since I can get that in a concentrate & mix it up in a gallon sprayer. I honestly don't know how often I use that. So far this year I've used 2 gallons of it, so that's enough to soak their stall, nesting boxes, them, etc about 3 times. That stuff I do spray directly on them when I use it, to the soaking point. So I only try to use that when weather permits. I've never seen any lice or mites on the white & yellow horse supplement buckets in their stall. The stall is a very temporary set up since we do plan on getting a coop for them. The roosting bars are held up with the taller, white, tubs. While the feeders & water are up on the shorter, yellow, tubs. There is 1 set of older metal nesting boxes (10 nesting boxes pr unit, 2 tier, with roosting bars). There are 2 grey single plastic ones with roosting bars, 2 sets of wooden nesting boxes (one is a set of 2, the other is a set of 3). Only the metal & plastic ones are screwed in the walls .... all very easy to either remove, or simply dump out the back by lifting off the wall. Since everything is so easy to move around & is only a temporary set up, I'm able to rearrange everything while cleaning. Some of them love it when I do that, other's hate it .... can't make all the chickens happy!
For internal parasites, I've been using Rooster Booster triple wormer since they were old enough to eat pellets.
http://roosterboosterproducts.com/products.php I've used it 3 times since I've owned chickens, & the oldest were hatched at the end of March of 2013. I never put 100% faith into it, which is why I took the easy, and I guess incorrect, way out of adding safeguard to their water twice a year. Maybe if I had done more research I would have learned that I had to add more than 3 cc pr gallon of water. I simply had to times that by 10. (yep, huge difference!) With so many chickens. I'd really like an easier & quicker way to de-worm them. Either by adding something to their water or their food. Trying to get de-wormer down the mouth of 26 chickens is NOT fun NOR easy! I've been thinking about giving safeguard once a year, & Valbazen once a year - has anyone used this?
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail....=86672855683&gclid=CLjW5onS_r8CFcI-Mgod7EwA_A
There's never enough that can be done. What will work for one, won't work for others. I guess it's all trial & error. I will see what happens after the safeguard & go from there. There are only so many other things that can be done. With her acting perfectly fine, other than a bald & red butt, & not a single other chicken having any issues at all, it's really hard to try to figure it out. I went back in some of my pictures, & this specific hen started laying eggs when she was only 4 months old (last year, not this year). From all the reading I've done, they're not suppose to start laying until they're 6 to 8 months of age .... which is when the others started.
https://www.omlet.us/breeds/chickens/brahma/. When she started laying she was a little gimpy (thus the name LG), so we put her in a stall by herself for a few weeks, until she wasn't gimping any more. I had taken a couple of pictures of her first few eggs, as they were soft shelled. She'd also lay 2 eggs a day some days ..... usually brahma's lay 3 eggs a week. It took her a while to work out the kinks, & for the most part all eggs have been hard shelled, except for 2, maybe 3, this year. She's had the red bald patch since February, after their molt. Hopefully she gets feathers back just in time to loose them again for the next molt!
