Poultry fleas, also known as stick tight fleas due to their ability to attach themselves to a host and not let go, can be a danger to your flock as well as your domestic pets. These nasty little critters like to attach themselves to the waddles, combs and around the eyes of your chickens as well as around the eyes of your dogs and cats. While not deadly to the larger animals, they can cause distress and death to members of your flock. The first sign of these fleas will be the constant scratching and shaking of your birds as well as small black specks around the eyes, waddles and combs. At this point you have already had the problem for a while. The hatch time for these fleas is a couple weeks, so you will not be able to rid the coop of them with one treatment. There are some sites that recommend destroying the entire flock and sterilizing the coop area. Pretty drastic, especially if you are attached to the gals. For large flocks there is information from local extension offices as well as within the industry. This article is for the backyard flock and based on my experiences here in Florida. After much trial and error and several infestations I found the best way to rid the girls of this pest was a one on one approach, with a bi-monthly dusting of the coop and surrounding area with Sevin dust. I took each bird and with a cotton swab, I rubbed the infested areas with Adams or Frontline Flea Spray. I then applied a coat of Vaseline to the same areas. No, the flea sprays did not kill any of the birds because they did not inhale the product, thus the cotton swab. I also dusted their bedding, nesting and dusting area every two weeks until all signs of fleas were gone. The birds will naturally dust themselves. I now have all birds clean and have not had a re-infestation in over a year. I continue to dust the area with Sevin about once a month UPDATE: After more trial and error I have found Adam's puppy or kitten spray to work best and it can be sprayed directly on the birds. I have also been treating the area with Ortho yard spray with no problems. I wait until the evening when the girls are on the roost. Glad to report all birds happy and clean after 4 months.
