Can a hen have lice eggs but no lice to be found? Eggbound? She is sick!

[ChurkLover]

I have a sick hen with what looks like maybe lice eggs around the base of her vent feathers. I looked at some other posts on this forum and found the attached photo which looks like what she has. I did a search of her neck, vent, belly and back and cannot find any live lice. Is this possible or maybe what she has is not lice eggs? She has been quite slow moving and poopy feathered. At first, I thought she was eggbound so I gave her a 20 min warm bath yesterday and immediately after, she pooped clear. I kept her in a crate in my garage last night, away from the others. This morning, I noticed some more poop in the crate, mostly running looking but some looked a bit normal with yellowing hues mixed in with the regular colored. She seems alert, comb is regular color. She is not moving about nearly as much as normal and just stands in one spot, closing her eyes as if she is resting. No eggs yet today as I just noticed this yesterday evening. When she is up moving around, she has her tail held up and her bum moves like she is trying to poop. I gave her another 20 min soak today thinking maybe still eggbound and that is when I noticed the clumps around her tail feathers. Maybe she has lice eggs and is eggbound? Can anyone help me with this?

 

[Judy]

Some types of lice or mites are only on the chicken at night. I figure you can't really hurt them with treating for lice/mites -- a lot of people do it prophylactically. Here's an article with some good pics, if you haven't seen it:

http://ucanr.org/freepubs/docs/8162.pdf

I don't see why they couldn't be eggbound and have lice or mites as well. Good luck with her!

 

[yinzerchick]

I figured out mine had roost mites when I went out to close up the pop door one night and heard them all stomping on the roosts! I couldn't believe it, it looked like they were clogging, or river dancing. The next day I cleaned out the entire coop and changed my old roosts out for new ones. ( I use 1x4s so it was easier to just get 2 new ones than try to try and clean the old.) I also cleaned out the nest boxes and put new roosts in front of them, and washed, sprayed, and DE'd everything. That night, no more stomping. Oh yeah, I sprayed all my chickens with Poultry Protector too. Good luck with the mite, they're nasty little buggers.