What do you use to wash your chickens?

[oregonkat]

I have a hen that has a very stubborn case of lice. Permethrin powder is not doing the job sufficiently so I would like to wash her and all of her coop mates. What do any of you recommend for this?

 

[lazy gardener]

How are you using the permethrin? Are you getting it down to their skin?

 

[Orps4life]

Dawn kills fleas on our dogs so it might help with the lice on ur chickens. Id recommend putting the Dawn in the water when you bathe her though. I've bathed a few of my chickens in dawn and it works well.

 

[Pyxis]

I've heard washing them with Adam's flea and tick shampoo works well for lice. The lice-killing ingredient in it is pyrethrin, which is the naturally-occurring compound that permethrin was derived from.

Permethrin should work too, but you need to also be cleaning out the coop and dusting it down with permethrin to kill any lice living in the coop, and then repeat dusting the birds and cleaning the coop in ten days.

 

[Cyprus]

I second using Adam's Flea and Tick shampoo.

 

[Orps4life]

also after their bath let them dust in diatomaceous earth

 

[oregonkat]

How are you using the permethrin? Are you getting it down to their skin?

Yes, as of last night we were on treatment no. 3, 10 days apart. I treated all the chickens turning them on their backs and getting the powder rubbed into the feathers at the base and around the vent and under the wings. I think actually that I got as much treatment as they did and yes, I was wearing a mask thankfully. Anyway, the rest of the hens are clear but the remaining hen still has some small egg clusters at the base of her feathers but I do not see any more running so we may be on the tail end of the infestation hopefully, I just want to be rid of the damn things. The coops have all been treated several times so I think I am good there.

Dawn kills fleas on our dogs so it might help with the lice on ur chickens. Id recommend putting the Dawn in the water when you bathe her though. I've bathed a few of my chickens in dawn and it works well.

Thanks, sure would be cheaper.

I've heard washing them with Adam's flea and tick shampoo works well for lice. The lice-killing ingredient in it is pyrethrin, which is the naturally-occurring compound that permethrin was derived from.

Permethrin should work too, but you need to also be cleaning out the coop and dusting it down with permethrin to kill any lice living in the coop, and then repeat dusting the birds and cleaning the coop in ten days.

I think I will try the Adams stuff and see. Thanks.