Managing fleas in poultry

Fleas are small blood-sucking parasites that infest nearly every kind of mammal on earth. Some of them infest poultry, including chicken, turkeys, pigeons, game birds, canaries and various types of non-domesticated birds. Fleas feed on the warm blood of their hosts. They use the nutrients in the process of laying eggs and thus produce even more fleas.
The stick-fast flea (Echindnophaga gallinacean) is one of the most troublesome parasites in poultry. It is a serious pest, as large numbers may cause progressive blood loss and related illnesses, and sometimes death. They are reddish brown in colour and smaller than other types of fleas. They ‘stick-fast’ onto the host, and do not move around like other fleas.
The most common place for the flea to attach is the head of poultry. Other sites are under the wings and on the breasts. A heavily infested bird can carry a black mass of fleas on its comb, wattles and behind its head, eye lids, ears, under the neck and further down the neck. There are seen mainly in warmer areas and can survive extremely low temperatures.
These parasites are not easily eradicated from backyard poultry houses or free-range poultry farms that do not have water-tight flooring.
Stick-fast fleas also infest cattle, rabbits, rats, goats, cats, horses, dogs and sometimes people. Understanding the life cycle of the stick-fast flea makes control methods easier to implement.
The average life cycle is about four to five weeks, depending on seasonal conditions. It starts with a female laying the eggs, which is usually at night time. An adult female flea lives for about six weeks on the host and lays approximately 12 eggs per night. These eggs fall to the ground and hatch into larvae that feed on the ground litter. Two to four weeks later, the larvae burrow into the soil to a depth of 15 cm and form a cocoon. They particularly like sandy type of soils. Adult fleas emerge from the cocoon within two to three weeks, depending on temperature and humidity. An adult flea which cannot find a suitable host survives only for a short period.
Infestations by external parasites like stick-fast fleas in poultry flocks lead to serious loss in the form of decreased egg production, decreased egg quality, decreased poultry growth, inefficient poultry feed conversion and death in severe cases.
These parasites are blood feeders causing anaemia in birds that are highly infested. Anaemia reduces a bird’s efficiency, production and ability to withstand and overcome other diseases. Young chickens and brooding hens may die due to blood loss. Birds in production may refuse to lay in nests that are infested with external parasites.
Birds stressed by flea infestations lose weight, have pale combs and wattles, and their feathers are generally soiled with flea excrement.
Poultry welfare and behaviour can also be negatively affected when external parasite infestations multiply, with increases in behaviours (or vices) such as feather pecking.
Losses associated with such parasite infestations are, therefore, both in terms of decreased poultry production and control costs.

Management of flea infestation in poultry
The goal of poultry farmers is to reap all the benefits from their investments of time, money and labour. An essential step in reaching this goal is to maintain a healthy and parasite-free flock of birds. The health of your flock is important regardless of whether you are maintaining a backyard flock for pleasure, raising a flock for meat and/or egg production, or breeding top-quality birds for supply of breeding stock to other farmers.
Keeping external parasites at bay from birds can be done by the following conventional and alternative means:

Poultry management practices
General sanitation and cleanliness helps to prevent infestations of ecto-parasites. Poultry houses should be clean and parasite-free before moving new birds in. All new birds should be checked to make sure they are parasite-free before they are brought on to the farm.
Provide easy to clean roosts and nests with few hiding places. Housing designs should eliminate hiding places for ecto-parasites as much as possible and allow thorough house cleaning.
Impenetrable floors are necessary for breaking the life cycle of fleas as they deny flea larvae the ability to burrow 15 cm into the soil to form a cocoon.
Constant monitoring of the flock, through physical examination of the external surfaces of each bird’s body, is the first step in detecting and preventing external parasites. Learning to identify and treat parasites is essential in having a profitable enterprise. Detecting and monitoring the parasite population level is, therefore, an important factor for effective control.
nAll litter or articles harbouring the flea should be destroyed. Removing soiled bedding removes fleas from the environment. Remove all bedding in the poultry environment and rake up everything and burn it or throw it away, and sweep the poultry house clean. Effective control of house mice, rats and wild birds hence denying them access to poultry house eliminates chances of transmitting these parasites to poultry.

Use of inorganic pesticides
Control of external parasites can also be carried out by use of chemical pesticides. Effective treatment for small, floor-reared flocks can include the application of a dust—treating the bird, litter and providing dust boxes for the birds to dust bathe. Bird spray treatment must be applied with sufficient force to penetrate the feathers. In addition to treating the birds, the inside of the house and all hiding places must be treated thoroughly using a high-pressure sprayer. Cages, pens, perches and surroundings should be sprayed.
Many insecticides are available on open market to help control external poultry parasites. One of the most effective broad-spectrum insecticides is permethrin. This has a significant residual activity, thus making it ideal for treating poultry housing and equipment. At reduced concentrations, permethrin can also be applied directly to the bird.
Control of ecto-parasites by use of synthetic contact acaricides is hampered by the behaviour of some of these parasites to reside in hard-to-target cracks and crevices when not feeding.
Tighter legislation of environmental control concerns regarding side-effects of inorganic pesticide use is a further constraint to the use of synthetic products.

Alternative control means
Additional remedies used to control poultry flea infestation include wood ashes (these remedies are believed to suffocate lice and mites without a chemical effect).

Significant research effort has been directed to exploring the potential of organic plant-derived products as acaricides for use against poultry ecto-parasites. Such products are typically attractive as pesticide candidates as they are environmentally non-persistent and possess low toxicity, unlike many of the available synthetic alternatives. These include plant essential oils or organic oil-based products (linseed oil, castor oil, olive oil), tea tree leaves, garic and neem (Azadirachta indica) oil micro-emulsions. Dressing with petroleum jelly or paraffin oil will suffocate attached parasites. A mixture of vegetable and essential oils and fatty acid potassium salts is also known to offer parasite-killing effects.

There are also new natural enzyme-containing lice flea sprays that are non-toxic such as poultry protector.

Diatomaceous earth is a natural compound made of fossilised remains of microscopic water plants, which once sprinkled over all surfaces in the chicken coop, including nest boxes and dirt flooring, control fleas through piercing the exo-skeletons of the fleas, dehydrating them and causing their death. Diatomaceous earth is safe for your chickens even if they ingest it.

Systemic control of flea infestation by use of bird injections with drugs like ivermectin or moxidectin is another alternative. Systemic oral flea treatment can also in two other forms of either a pill or a food additive. These will most likely repel or kill fleas but they do not prevent successful breeding in fleas.

Dr James Ssematimba is a veterinary expert working with Send a Cow Uganda