The Poultry Keeper

Jillus · Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 3

One of my chickens has looked a bit off for a while, not really eating and has not produced an egg for about a week, when I took a closer look at her today I discovered she was infested with lice. I started right away on dusting her with Red Mite powder as that was all I have to hand but tomorrow intend going to the pet shop to get something more appropriate.

By the time I had finished I had lice crawling on my skin and some in my hair. It was foul ( excuse the pun) anyway I am now clean but what I want to know is, are these the same lice that the kids used to get and can I get them transferred and living on me and does anyone know the best method to eradicate the whole lot. She does seem to have a horrible lot of them as some of her feathers were caked with eggs.

Itsybitsy · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Posts: 1325 Location: Leicestershire

Lice are host specific, so the lice on your birds will crawl up your arm and will probably try to bite you but they won't be able to live for long on you, and it works the other way too, so if your children came home with a dose of lice from school they won't be able to pass them on to your chickens.

You can no longer buy louse powder for livestock - well not one that's going to do any good, you can only get deterrents which will be herbal based and some people swear by them, but an infestation as bad as this will need something stronger. Probably the best thing to do will be to buy something for dogs or cats and use that, or for pigeons. The other way to go is to use something for cattle - Eprinex is the best, but if you've no access to a cattle farmer then go for the dog/cat option.

I usually find though that a bird that has a bad lice infestation has other problems health wise too, most birds will have a few lice but they can normally cope with them.

Itsybitsy

lillie02 · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 43 Location: Wales

I used frontline for cats it killed all the lice overnight and my bird was covered in lice.

You can buy it from Pets at Home etc now not just the vets.

Jillus · Joined: 25 Jul 2008 Posts: 3

Thanks for the advice, hopefully the lice are all dead now and wont reappear in a hurry. But I intend to do a belt and braces job and powder everyone again next week.