De- lousing

[Hen-Gen]

Nice sunny day here so decided to de-louse my chickens. I’ve been putting it off for weeks blaming the weather, neighbours visiting or the Mars landings.
So today was the day. I hate the sheer pandemonium it causes. The woman, or man, who comes up with an oral solution to this (like Flubenvet for worms) will get my vote for the Nobel Peace Prize.
I guess it was motivated by the curious drop, about 75%, in egg production over the last ten days just when it’s hatching time looming. Nothing like chickens for f...ing you about. Or should I say frustrating your plans ?.

 

[Icemaiden]

They're not image conscious enough to dustbathe in soil, ash & diatomaceous earth then? I guess you don't have wood ash, not having trees... Or is it too cold for your flocks to want to dustbathe at the moment?

 

[Hen-Gen]

Yes they do duste bathe in soil. But I’m not convinced that this works for all the external parasites that chickens get so once a year I like to do them with powder. At the same time I spray all the brackets that hold up the perches where they join the wall and where they join the perch with insecticide.
All this might be unnecessary because apart from red mite on one occasion I’ve never found any kind of parasite.
Incidentally I only knew about the red mite when once the chickens instead of going in to bed decided to huddle in a cluster outside.

 

[rick]

Can you see any evidence of critters Hen Gen? Other than the drop in laying? Given that inspecting them all over (and that usually means all of them which is no less hassle than wholesale dusting.) Its good to know the target, if there is a lousy or mitey one, because the solutions are very specific. The dust bath only deters lice (for the most part.) For common lice - having a good look around the rear end of 50% of them will prove it one way or the other (with your glasses on - I need it!) For RM its a bit of mat or a batten near the perches and see if they show up under it. I also need glasses for that one - they are so tiny, but once you get an eye in for the signs of a colony they are suddenly hard to miss. It should be too cold so far for RM to get funky.
... Its only because I keep chickens in a ridiculously tight area I get fine tuned to this stuff. A bigger flock and lots of space is a different world ( and changes the ways of dealing with it) but I think it still goes back to the same 'knowing what's going on' sort of thing.