Backyard Poultry Forum

Hi all, I treated all my birds with Moxidectin plus in their drinking water a couple of days ago. They didnt drink alot over the 24 hours as its been fairly cool weather. How long does it take to kill the lice that are on the birds? I picked up one of my roosters to check him over today and found lice crawling around. I have bought some poultry dust today to put in the bedding straw as the pet shop didnt have any coopex or similair, just tiny bottles of spray you would use for caged birds. I just dont know if these lice I saw today are new ones that have come off the bedding or if the Moxi hasnt killed them yet. Thanks, Wendy

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There comes a time in life when you must walk away from all the pointless drama and the people who create it and surround yourself with people who make you laugh so hard that you forget the bad and focus on the good

Forget about moxidectin for lice. Theoretically it does kill them, but the dosage has to be very high. My vet tells me that Ivomec is good, but I prefer to use permethrin. It's reliable. I dip them, but you can spray them or use the pour on. Coopex is expensive to buy and it's just a weaker version of permethrin. Just get permethrin from the garden section of your hardware store. Look at the labels of the termite sprays. David Grays makes one. It's just a matter of putting some warm water in a bucket and putting some soap and the permethrin in, then dipping the birds and letting them dry.

Alternatively, if you have the dust there, dust the birds, not just the litter. What works. Just take care that you don't breathe in the dust while you're doing it. Do it in an open space. Some people like to use a mask.

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Backyard Poultry Forum
Feather Clubs Association of Qld

Thanks for that info Cathy, I will get it from the hardware store tomorrow. As well as the dust, I bought some permethrin spray for caged birds today. Im going to start doing them all in the morning with it. I dont think the 500ml bottle will go very far. Cheers, Wendy

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There comes a time in life when you must walk away from all the pointless drama and the people who create it and surround yourself with people who make you laugh so hard that you forget the bad and focus on the good

Buying permethrin specifically for birds seems to be more expensive. I buy David Grays Ant and Termite Spray in 500ml bottles. I think it costs about $23 and it last for a very long time. It isn't expensive at all. It's 100g/L so it's two and a half times the strength of Coopex. I just make that adjustment when I'm mixing it up.

Colin Walker uses a 40g/L product, but here's his dilution rate which can be easily converted.

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Backyard Poultry Forum
Feather Clubs Association of Qld

Hi Cathy,

When you 'dip' the chicken... do you do the whole chook including the head.. or just the body below the neck?

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jojo

Jo, I do as much as I can without getting any in its ears, eyes or beak. I wet the back of the head with my hand so the head doesn't have to go under. I like to get the neck area done pretty well as there are often lice eggs there.

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Backyard Poultry Forum
Feather Clubs Association of Qld

I got the David Grays this morning and dipped 10 chooks so far. Had to blowdry them all as the sun disappeared. That was a mission!! My back and shoulders are aching after all that

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There comes a time in life when you must walk away from all the pointless drama and the people who create it and surround yourself with people who make you laugh so hard that you forget the bad and focus on the good

Yes, it is hard work, but it works. There is a 4-6 week residual, so you can often get away without a repeat dose for external parasites. It depends how bad things are and whether or not they get reinfested from the coop.

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Backyard Poultry Forum
Feather Clubs Association of Qld

I should be free of lice and mites too! I ended up soaked
Can definately tell my 2 black Pekins have been bathed and blowdried for shows before. They just stood there and let me have my way with them. All the others, it took a few minutes or more to convince them that the blowdrier wasnt the enemy!

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There comes a time in life when you must walk away from all the pointless drama and the people who create it and surround yourself with people who make you laugh so hard that you forget the bad and focus on the good

Hi Cathy, could you please answer for me. what would be the minimum age would you do chicks with the Permethrin?
Thanking you Ron

It would depend on the circumstances, Ron. I've never read anything specific. If I had very young chicks with lice I would use a dust as I'd prefer to avoid wetting them. Here I don't generally treat anything under 12 weeks for any parasites at all as they haven't got enough of them to make it necessary. From 12 weeks I would dip them on a warm day. You can probably do it younger quite safely, it's just that I haven't done it myself. In some cases it can be handy to put the diluted solution into a spray bottle and spray the bird. I have never noticed any ill effect on the birds after dipping.

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Backyard Poultry Forum
Feather Clubs Association of Qld

Thanks Cathy, I would say that would be a good guide to go by.
Ron

The easiest way is to apply 3 drops of Frontline (dog flea control) to the back of the chicken's neck. This will clean up all your mites.

hello, I am just about to do the permethrin dip and spray in our coop as we have had a shocking infestation of the mites this year. We have dusted and re-dusted and cleaned and changed all straw/etc in the pen so many times, so time to do the permethrin thing. I've had my birds for 5 yrs and we have never had this problem before.

My Question is .... Do we need to withhold eggs when doing this? as I think I might need to do and re-do this to exterminate these wee little beasties ?

Thank-you in advance for your help !

I don't. Permethrin is something that is legal to spray around humans (fly spray), a version of it is in mosquito coils and we can put it all over the vegetable garden and the fruit trees.

Putting it on the outside of the birds is less likely to result in an egg residue than if the chickens ingest it, however there may be some small amount there. Small residues are not considered to be highly toxic to humans as they decompose rapidly in the body.

If you have concerns about it, then observe the conservative 2 week withholding. During that time you can feed the eggs back to the chickens. The residue would be incredibly minute anyway.

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Backyard Poultry Forum
Feather Clubs Association of Qld