We asked the manager at Farm Sanctuary in California some questions about chicken lice, which keep coming back on our chickens. Below are our questions and her replies in red.
1. For chickens with lice, at the base of feather stems in the area of the lice, there often seem to be little clumps. Are these clumps lice eggs? yes
2. If they are lice eggs, is there anything that can be done to get ride of them, perhaps something to spray on them? I try to pinch them but don't want to pull out the feather. We cut the feather off at the base in order to remove the lice eggs and prevent them from hatching.
3. The chickens most susceptible to vent lice seem to be the ones whose butt feathers haven't grown back all the way so they get crusty poop back there on the new feathers. Are the lice attracted to the poop? We clean their butt feathers every week or two and dusting seems to keep the lice at bay, but they always come back. Any advice
on vent lice? The poop may give the lice a place to hide. What you may need to do is switch topical treatments since the lice do become immune to them over a period of time. We switch between Sevin dust and Permectrin dust. Also, if this is a reoccurring problem the barn may need a good cleaning. When we had a bad lice problem all of the bird areas were given a good cleaning – straw and straw bales removed and replaced, anything wood scrubbed then sprayed with whichever topical we were going to use on the birds – waiting until the area dried until the birds were moved back in. We then treated every bird weekly with the dust then used the spray. Treating with Ivomec injection once a week for three weeks will also help kill the adults, eggs, and new hatchlings. It took several weeks for the lice to totally go away, but they haven’t come back since – knock on wood! Also remember to treat everyone, not just those with the lice, since the lice will move from bird to bird.