I am not sure if it is Lice or a disease, but i need to figure it out so i can safe my other 19 chickens from it. Okay... last night i found my little black hen Domino curled up outside and she didnt look good so i brought her inside and put her in my bathroom with a little heater to help warm her up. I looked her over and she seemed okay. I checked her legs to see if they had frostbite, but they looked okay. But then i realized she had bugs crawling on her. So my first thought is they are mites, so i looked them up on the computer and they didnt look or sound like what others described so someone on here told me it might be lice. Which i think it might've been. So sadly last night she died But then this morning I come out side and all the chickens are running around in our horse pastures, but to my astonishment I opened the big coop door to see my big ISA Brown rooster laying dead on the floor. I was stunned the most gentle rooster i have is dead. So i look around then realize that something is really wrong, so i take him out to bury him, then i go and get my mite dust but we barely have any left, ugh! So what do you all thing happened? And what should i do to keep it from spreading to the other chickens?
You can go get Ivermectin and put 3-4 drops on the skin of each bird. This will take care of whatever external parasites they have. It may be that you're dealing with more than one thing, though, so go over each of them carefully. Good luck.
Sounds like the mite/lice infestation got so bad that it killed them. The quickest treatment is too give your whole flock a bath in flea/tick shampoo for dogs/cats and dust them with Sevin. The coop will need to be stripped, and you'll need to add all new bedding and dust the coop as well with Sevin. Hopefully someone else with more experience can chime in. This is just what I know, I've never had mice/lice in my flock. Best of luck to you.
Tragically, they can come from squirrels, wild birds, rabbits, hay, straw, etc. It's generally not an issue, but sometimes there can be an overpopulation they can't manage on their own.
Sorry for your losses...Although bathing works, it can really stress them out, and you have to blow dry them, so I would dust them with poultry dust, NOT DE and spray or dust their coop. BYC's Dawg53 said that he uses a leaf blower to spread the dust into all of the cracks and crevices of the coop, I use Sevin liquid and spray the coop.
You might want to send your rooster for a necropsy to rule out other diseases. Often you'll see excessive mites/lice on birds just because they are sick and haven't been dust bathing. If you live in the US, your State might have a free service like CA does. If you decide to do this, refrigerate, DO NOT freeze!
Thxs everyone, I am going to hopefully get more dust tonight, i ran out yesterday and didnt get to dust the whole coop.
