I already have the “itchies” just typing those words.
Picture the Alfred Hitchcock movie “The Birds”. Last winter a flock of starlings (nasty little black birds that resemble rats) decided to invade my coop. This wasn’t a small flock, it was about 50 birds that felt they could all fit inside. Not only was it disgusting to look at, but they also made a mess of everything as they were not smart enough to figure out how to get back out of the coop and would fly around in a panic while pooping all over.
Of course this warranted a thorough cleaning of the coop, but what I didn’t realize was that this coop cleaning would need some serious weapons of war. Those birds left an invisible predator….lice. (This lice is not something humans can get as it is specific to poultry…trust me, I googled that one up one side and down the other)
I had no idea there was even an issue. I did however lose one chicken, but she looked like she was molting or possibly having too many encounters with the rooster. It never occurred to me to think past that. A few months later, I lost another bird. This one had the same look to her and this time it caught my attention. I started researching mites and then lice and quickly ran back out to get the bird in order to look it over. The ‘Chicken Guru’ friend of mine instructed me to look at the feathers by the base of the tail and underneath the tail near their vent. It didn’t take long and sure enough I found feathers with eggs around the base of the shaft. Fortunately I was looking at a black bird, which made it all easier to spot.
I then headed straight to our local farm store. I purchased Garden and Poultry Dust as well as Ivomec Sheep Drench which can also treat mites and lice. I had read that this can be a quick way to treat the problem by placing 1-3 drops per bird directly on their skin (as opposed to drenching an entire sheep). I did just that with a dropper, cleaned the coop again, and started from scratch. I dusted their bedding with the dust as well as the floor of the coop in hopes that I was attacking them from all angles.
Fast forward a month or two and I found a major cause to my problem. My rooster, a beautiful lavender boy (light gray) was homing a nice family of lice eggs right underneath his beak. I had no idea to even check there but it makes perfect sense as they cannot clean those feathers very well. He had such a mess that I quickly checked with the ‘Chicken Guru’ and she gave me full permission to start plucking. It was easier to pluck the feathers with eggs as they were clear to see and would clearly reduce the numbers I was dealing with. This time however, I brought in a new product. I used Ivermectin to mix a solution to spray the entire coop with. Once I had cleaned out the coop to a bare state, I sprayed every last square inch, corner and wall. I left no space untouched. I then made a solution to spray each bird with. Lucky for me, I never found any signs of these dang parasites on any of my girls, just the rooster. It happened to work out perfectly as he was also being quite naughty (starting to show a bit of aggression) and so he was now the proud owner of his own quarantined space. This would hopefully reduce the spread of any lice I hadn’t killed and would also give him a bit of solitude to rethink his behavior. I retreated everyone about a week later with the same solution.
My science project:
Two weeks past the last treatment I gave everyone one more dose. I still found a few feathers with eggs near the underside of the rooster but I am fairly certain I pulled out anything that resembled a problem.
These little buggers are hard to treat. While it seems gross and to be a sign of uncleanliness, you would be surprised at how normal it is. Any outdoor animal is susceptible to bugs of some sort. Whether it be fleas, flies, lice, or mites…anything is possible. Chickens usually do a great job of preening themselves and cleaning/eating most problems. However, to avoid an infestation, I highly recommend inspecting your flock monthly to get on top of anything that might be starting. It took me quite a while to decipher as to whether I had lice or mites, but we never once saw a bug (mites are slightly visible as little dark spots). I also stopped feeding scraps to the chickens in the larger part of the run where it may attract wild birds.
No need to call in the enemies!