Stick Tight Fleas

[Sylie]

After shampooing your animal (dog, cat, whatever) you can use lemon juice as a rinse, straight up. Just get the cheapest juice you can find, fleas HATE it and will abandon ship instantly. (just don't refrigerate the lemon juice before you use it, the animals don't like the COLD juice on their warm bodies lol, I accidentally did that with a cat one time and ended up with stitches) after you get all or most of the soap out with the lemon juice, rinse with fresh warm water to get the juice off their skin (it technically won't hurt them but it may dry their skin). You'll see drowned or near drowned fleas in the tub/ ground area. It works great.

[seminolewind]

Sounds like something worth trying.

[seminolewind]

Well, after continuously checking my chickens for stick tight fleas, 2 actually turn up with loads of them! That was awful quick for those 2 whom one of was watched like a hawk and the other was checked frequently because he was losing feathers on his head. Last night he had a big spot on his head in plain site of about 50 of them fleas. This is 10 days after being sprayed with Adam's.

Today they get the horse spray, Permethrin and something else. Maybe the Adams isn't working.
The poor little roo looks like he has a puffy face so he will be getting pen G injections. Today he'll get just Corona cream on top of abx ointment.

[seminolewind]

So today one of my Polish has a few on her face. I take her out to treat her and find a Nest of them in her feathers in a spot above her eye but on her head where feathers lay over it. I'm treating her with a Q-tip and a gauze soaked in horse spray and dabbing her head and these suckers are abandoning ship ON ME! So I'm dabbing gauze with horse spray all over me too. I got my yard sprayer all set up but the rain is making it difficult.

[dawg53]

Boy oh boy, glad we dont have those fleas this far north, phew!

[seminolewind]

I got the silkie/Polish pen sprayed today. Malathion. It's a covered pen so it won't rain away. That's my most problem pen. Then of course it did rain and nothing more got done. Open areas need 24 hours without rain. Malathion stinks, don't it?

[maryellen]

Thats crazy! Those fleas are insane omg.
I hope you can get rid of them

[seminolewind]

Well I soaked the Polish/silkie pen with malathion and let it dry for a few hours. WELL those fleas must have panicked and all ran around finding a chicken to jump on! I found 2 polish that had clumps again. Sheesh.

[seminolewind]

OMG, I feel like I'm under attack. I do think the Malathion has driven those fleas to jump on chickens. Ack!!!

[Sylie]

I'm sorry Sem! I know nothing about stick tight fleas but they sound worse than regular fleas.

[maryellen]

Ugh. Is there any other chemical that would work?

[seminolewind]

The chemicals are one thing. Timing is another. They have a life cycle. I DO think that treating the ground made them flock to the chickens. I did 10 chickens yesterday . the worst ones. 5 silkies and 5 polish. They all got a haircut which isn't pretty. I call it the opposite of a mohawk. I have to get to treat the skin and not the feathers. So I have 10 silkies and polish who have really bad haircuts like the center cut short and the ends left long. Then they all got treated with Permethrin/something with a qtip on the face and a gauze wad soaked and dabbed on their scalp. These fleas are only attracted to white chickens and maybe buff. NOT!!! My black silkie was scratching and shaking up a storm and she had a full head of them. Imagine looking for fleas against black skin. I never saw them til yesterday.

She made the peacock call for an hour after that! I found a few on me (Grrr!). Nasty crap. Shower works great.

I bought the ultimate sprayer. I had one a few years ago. No measuring. You put the chemical in the container and set the number on top to how many tbls per gallon you want. Best I've had.


Its hard to figure what chemical works. They jump so fast. I guess it's just wait and see. I keep a journal as well.

[seminolewind]

I spent tonight in the dark spraying the premises for fleas. I was soaked with sweat when I came in even in my eyes.


I am experimenting with a flea killer that requires no chemicals. Vaseline. I schmeared it on a silkie roo's head, face, neck and throat. I want to see if it makes a difference and they can be suffocated like mites.

[maryellen]

Coconut oil works on mites too, ive used both and they both work on mites, so hopefully the vaseline kills the fleas.

[seminolewind]

I suppose they breathe air. And being stick tight may actually help- muhahahaha! I'll check him today. Nice thing too is hypothetically new fleas will get their feet stuck in the Vaseline.

[seminolewind]

I Re treated 10 polish and silkies, and sprayed their pen again. One polish was pretty bad even after last week's treatment. All I can say is when we move to indiana, they will all die, haha.

[seminolewind]

These things will just not go away. Even being on top of it, they still move in. I'm hoping the cold weather kills them all. It's like impossible to keep up with.

[seminolewind]

For the last 2 days I've been in shock. My 5 Polish, who are spot checked frequently like one a day turn up with piles of stick tight fleas, just gross. It was 2 weeks since the last treatment. They love forming clumps on the scalp and brow. This is happening when they are close monitored. It's just unreal. I have even given them haircuts to treat them better and get the bug killer on their scalp.

Yesterday I treated the last few from the day before and sprayed down their pen (again) and their yard area.

[dawg53]

I'm glad we dont have them up here!

[seminolewind]

I have some new chemicals coming. At this point I have no faith in Adam's or Sevin for fleas. Can't wait to get them out of here and let the cold kill those &astards!