Topic: Aaaargh red mite

[jonny211]

In two years of keeping chucks I've seen my first red mite today... crawling on my arm. Looks like tomorrow will be spend spraying the houses down and dusting the birds if I can catch them.

Trouble is I've got double skinned houses so I think I'm doomed and a chookhouse bonfire may be just around the corner.

Wish me luck.

[teresa]

they are a pain varios things on the market, from the old fashioned creasote if you can get it to mite killer to put in water to spray the whole house. Dust or spot on for the hens.
I did read on another forum that a chap had 3 hen houses and one did not have red mite in? he found a lot of earwigs instead and after further reading he found out that earwigs come out at night and would eat anything crawling like the mite. So he cleans his houses out and puts a handfull of earwigs in each. It has worked for him and the hens dont see the earwigs so dont eat them. Something to think about so flower pots full of straw on canes round the garden and collet them thats my next move.

[Digeroo]

Nice to hear that Earwigs have some good use.  Always thought them a bit of a pest.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Paraffin or Jeyes Fluid would do it, if you paint on enough to let it soak well into the cracks.

[jonny211]

I've given both houses a proper soaking in Poultry Shield, but had to take them to bits to do so. The inner lining hid many of the little b*ggers and I was finding clumps of mites, these got a zapping with B&Q bug spray and then hosed down again with the poultry shield.

I imagine I'll have to do the same again in a few days time to get any new hatches?

I did see a few earwigs tho, sadly they went the same way as the mites.

It took about 6 hours in total to do both houses and I'm still itching thinking about it.

[worldor]

We creosote the house spring and autumn. Does the trick.

[B7jac]

I spent ages trying to rid these little pests last year ! tried the lot, scrubbing down with jeyes fluid etc., all kinds of bug/red mite sprays.  The only thing that worked for me was a good scrubbing with poultry shield and then a spray with the same after.  Thankfully this year (fingers crossed) I havent seen one !!!!
I do poultry shield regularly tho with my usual hygiene routine.

[slyfox-mal]

i have tried allsorts to get rid of mites and finally tried Diatomaceous earth
it works a treat and is organic i also add it to the food as it works as a wormer also i also add it to the dust bath it cleans all sorts of problems  well worth a try
atb mal

[kt.]

We have chucked lime around the cree in the nooks and crannies.  Seems to have worked.

[jonny211]

I think the war is over for now.

Over the past 10 days or so I've soaked the big house in poultry shield every few days, yesterday I did a spray of dettol then creosoted (well the pretend creosote) the house, today I didn't get a single mite on me when I was  insepecting the inside.

I've had to pull out and dump the inner plywood lining and removed the inner partitions replacing the nestbox with a plstic tidy-a-way from B&Q, it's pink so hopefully the girls will like it.

I then transferred the chooks from the small house and run and bathed them before letting them back into the big run. Remind never again to try and bath a chicken.

I've also detolled the small house again.

This must be it!

[RobinOfTheHood]

I've just had the same problem, I've never noticed mites before - I got my chooks in April - but on Monday evening, after dark, the kids had been sitting inside the coop with the chickens and when they got up home they were absolutely covered in them.

So, Tuesday the battle began. I stripped the coop out - nestboxes, bedding etc, got firstly the small flame gun (the little crappy Parasene gas one) and then the Sheen X300 inside, got it as hot as I could for as long as possible without setting fire to the coop.
Then I sprayed it down with Jeyes, being mindful to get into all the cracks.

When I came back after dark, there were hundreds if not thousands of the things crawling about from inside the tongue and grooving of the wood. Tough or what?

Anyhow, I put Wilkinson's ant powder (permethrin, not benziocarb like some) on all the horizontal surfaces that I could, and the next morning - bingo. Lots - thousands - of casualties of war.

Wednesday morning I built them a sandpit inside the coop as well, a mixture of 5 bags of playpit sand and 2 bottles of ant powder.
They haven't worked out what to do with it yet, but hopefully they soon will.

Checked last night and not a single live mite was to be seen - obviously I'll keep on checking but it seems to have done the trick for now.  :)

[jonny211]

I also used a permethrin spray on any groups of mites that I saw, that stuff seems to work very well. Where did you get the powder from by the way?

I didn't even know I had them until I saw a few hanging off a spiders web in the chicken house, they hid themselves very well. I think the next house I make will have all of the structural bits on the outside to give as few hiding places as possible.

[RobinOfTheHood]

Wilkinson's own brand.  :)