Poultry lice and mites…
They’re a natural part of the outdoors 
You’re not going to be able to stop your flock from getting an infestation every once in a while
It’s just something that you really can’t prevent
Well … because they are everywhere, out in the yard, on wild birds, on rodents…
They’re on anything that your flock could come in contact with.
So what do you do about the mites and lice? ?
How do you manage it?
They’re a natural part of the outdoors.
There’s not a lot you can do about that.
It doesn’t mean that you’re not keeping your coop clean and that your coop is filthy. 
It doesn’t mean that at all.
What it does mean, though, is that..
You need to be prepared to look for it every once in a while ?
So that if you find it you can do something about it before it becomes a really big infestation problem.
To detect it … 
Check your chickens between the feathers down to the skin
Because if you’ve got any critters, they’re going to be crawling on the skin in between all the feathers.
If the parasites have laid eggs, you’re going to see the globs of eggs on the base of the feather,
On the shaft of the feather all the way down at the skin.
That’s where you want to check for them.
There are also certain mites that get between the scales on their legs, 
Check out the scales on their legs to make sure that there’s nothing under the scales making them stick up funny so that they don’t look right.
If you happen to find mites or lice on a flock member,
I haven’t found a good natural treatment that actually works.
I’ve tried some of them and they just don’t seem to do much.
So I do a dip. I get Permethrin and I mix it with water.
The directions are on the Permethrin bottle.
I put it in a 17.5 gal plastic tub that I got at the tack shop ?
I bring it out into the run and we dip everybody!
Even if I only saw them on one bird, everyone gets dipped.
Because if one of them has them, the others are probably going to get them.
So I go ahead and dip everyone
I make sure it’s a warm enough day that they can just air dry.
Dipping the whole flock, one after another, doesn’t take that long. 
I dump the dirty solution from dipping them because they’ve got dirt in their feathers from dust bathing.
And then I mix a clean batch of solution to spray down the whole entire hen house.
The whole run, the coop, everything. I spray the whole thing. 
I tend to do the coop during the day because the flock is out in the run.
Then when they go inside that night to go to bed, I’ll do the run because they’re all in the coop. That way I don’t have to worry about spraying them directly by accident and them breathing it in.
Here, out in the desert, it doesn’t really take that long for it to dry. It dries pretty quick. 
Unfortunately lice and mites are just something you have to live with when you’ve got a flock of backyard chickens.
It’s just part of the territory.
I’m sorry to say that, but yeah, external parasites like these are just part of it.
Update 12/2021 – I’ve been putting catnip in the hens feed as a natural way to help them fight against mites. So far its been working great and no Permethrin dip.
I hope this information helps you deal with your flock.
If you have any questions, definitely put them down in the comments on this post and I’ll answer them for you.
I can always give you more information if you’ve got follow up questions.
Remember … Be The Organic U – Feed Your Soul
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