Treating Lice on Free Range Chickens... and can lice kill a chick?

[anthriel]

Hi! Thank you in advance for any help you can give me... I am quite the chicken neophyte!

We purchased an abandoned property six months ago, and there were feral chickens in the back yard... they had been abandoned by the previous owners, apparently. There had been no one in the house for about six months, so these guys were on their own for a while. They are pretty skittish.

We, of course, started feeding them. Since we were not that great at picking up eggs (we have gotten better!) and since one of the chickens is a rooster (we had two, but there was a terrible fight one day... it was awful), we have had three clutches of chicks born here. They are completely free-range... they roam our 2 acre property, and are pretty amazing about eating bugs and weed heads, with us giving them scratch and lay crumble on demand, which they demand a lot. We are enjoying them very much, but we don't/can't handle them; they are all leery of getting too close.

One of the youngest chicks (about three weeks old) was acting very oddly today, so we brought him inside and tried to give him water with a syringe. One of our older chicks had the same symptoms (lethargic, completely limp legs) about a week ago, and she perked right up after we gave her several feedings of water. We hoped we could help this little guy today, too.

Sadly, not so much. He died about an hour ago. The oddest thing, though... just as he was dying, all of a sudden quite a few lice-like creatures came surging off of him, and got on my hands and the box he was in, etc. I've done a little research, and will try to treat (with SEVIN?) the common areas that our chickens hang out in... again, they don't have a proper coop, and they sleep in the trees. We can't catch them to treat them individually.

Could those lice have killed the little guy? And why didn't we see them on that older chick that we treated last week? Can I put the SEVIN in the areas where they typically take their dust baths? Will the SEVIN be dangerous for my horses, who graze in that area?

Thanks, again. I appreciate your help!

 

[redsoxs]

Some folks treat with Sevin - active ingredient carbaryl...or a poultry dust with an an active ingredient permethrin. And on little chicks I think a heavy infestation could indeed kill them. Good luck to you!

 

[Eggcessive]

If you have some wood ash from a fireplace or a neighbor's, this is great for dusting the chickens or putting in their dust-bathing areas to fight lice and mites. Many people save the ashes in bags to use year round. Since these birds are so heavily infested I would use Poultry Dust which I believe is Permethrin, but the wood ash is great..

 

[anthriel]

Thank you for your quick responses!

Wood dust would be a great idea, especially since I am pretty sure it would be safe for my horses. Unfortunately, it's 105F here in Phoenix, and no one is burning wood here right now.

So would the permethrin be better than the SEVIN?I think I can get the SEVIN at Home Depot, but the pet store that sells chicken stuff is closed on Sundays...

So if you see lice at all it's a heavy infection? Do most chickens have some lice? I really am quite new to this stuff!