Ritta122

[Henrietta122]

I have my first chicken that is a rescue. Her family was attacked and frozen Dec 27 on the early am.
It is now 37 days later and I have learned to pick up a lot of chicken poop. She has a perch, vitamin water, crumble, she gets veggies,chopped romaine,one slice of cucumber, chopped, three blueberries per day, mealworms, and crack corn , that's basically what she's been eating. She has made her way to my room and found a perch to hang out until bed time 9:30 for her. I pick her up and put her back in the bathroom. Make sure she has water crumble whatever she might want. Wake her in the morning around 7:30. She's in the house with two of my house cats the oldest , She is going to be 17 she thought she had total control over the house, one evening after feeding six other cats I have I came back into the house when you find her on top of my bed with my two kitties in their kitty beds on top of my bed looking at me wondering what your chicken doing here I picked up. Rita brought her back to the bathroom.
So here's my problem I have given her bath with Epson salts and I get these bugs that crawl off of her their little brown bugs. They're a size of fleas.
So my question is, is this something that's gonna be passed on to the cats or the rest of the house or me .
I called around looking for a veterinarian that treats chickens and have not found one yet.
I read your article about the perineum dust and spray that you were recommended to a reader and when I gave her her first bath I saw these bugs I thought maybe we killed them all and I think I remember they're called chicken lice when I read that when they do fall off of her, they have a 21 day cycle ? And the process starts again.

1- will the lice get on me or the house cats ,
2- do I need to treat the house
3- if I use Parthian dust or spray how long do I have to keep my cats away and can either of those treatments be harmful to the cats?
Thank you

 

[DobieLover]

little brown bugs. They're a size of fleas.

You are describing red poultry mites, not lice.
These can be treated with Permethrin dust or spray HOWEVER, she CANNOT be around your cats if she is treated with this as it can kill your cats.
The instructions for use of permethrin based products for flea and tick control on dogs in a dog/cat household state that once the product dries, the dog is safe to be around the cats.

I would get the spray and spray her to the skin:
under both wings, under her neck hackle feathers, under her vent in her fluff, on her back and her chest then keep her away from the cats for an entire day.

Here's the real problem: because she's been in your house all this time, you likely have red mites hiding somewhere in the house. The permethrin will kill the adult mites but not the eggs. The eggs will hatch in 7-10 days and re-infest her. So she will need to be treated again 1 week after your first treatment. Typically, the chicken housing is also treated to kill off mites that hide in the coop. You can't do that because she has been living in the house with cats around.

You really need to get her coop built and get her moved outside where she can dust bathe and take better care of herself.