When we brought our girls home, they had mites as well. After considering the options, we chose to use DE as well. Picked up a bag of food grade at the feed store and mixed some in with their litter and dust bath and within a week, the mites were gone. It wasn't a massive infestation but I haven't seen a single one in nearly 2 months. We continue to add a little DE to new bedding and when we top off their bathing boxes.
Organic treatment for tiny black mites or bed bugs?
- Thread starter LauraN
- Start date
If you have a steamer you can kill them with steam. Heat terminates bedbugs.
We had a really bad case of mites in our coop. There were probably 10s of thousands of them. They came out at night and fed on the chickens then mostly hid during the day. We tried DE and everything natural we could find. Then we discovered sulfer powder!!
We locked the chickens in the run at night and did not let them in the coop for a week. I dusted the entire coop with the powder, then i mixed with water and sprayed every nook and cranny. I sprayed every night for about 4 days in a row. i went out every night with a flashlight and a sprayer and took on the mites.
Then I put some powder in a trash bag. I put each chicken in the bag with their head sticking out, then powdered their entire body.
We have been mite free for a couple of weeks. I keep the roosts dusted so any mites that are left have to cross the sulpher. It kills them on contact.
I never want to go through that again, it was horrible.
You can get sulpher at the coop or online. Good luck!!
We locked the chickens in the run at night and did not let them in the coop for a week. I dusted the entire coop with the powder, then i mixed with water and sprayed every nook and cranny. I sprayed every night for about 4 days in a row. i went out every night with a flashlight and a sprayer and took on the mites.
Then I put some powder in a trash bag. I put each chicken in the bag with their head sticking out, then powdered their entire body.
We have been mite free for a couple of weeks. I keep the roosts dusted so any mites that are left have to cross the sulpher. It kills them on contact.
I never want to go through that again, it was horrible.
You can get sulpher at the coop or online. Good luck!!
I have copied this old post from 2009. I am going to try this treatment if I need to. In the mean time, I am using DE. I have noticed there are VERY few flies. I mean I have seen like three. Way less than when chickens were not living there. I am gonna backtrack and paint coop with DE because I keep seeing wasps.
Thankyou Purpletree whose post I borrowed.
- Sep 14, 2013
- 41
- 31
- 104
This worked on my flock:
Monterey Garden Insect Spray, 16 oz. bottle
Active ingredient : SPINOSAD .5%
~$30
I believe my flock had the red northern fowl mite on them. There were little red bugs on their underfeathers and sometimes I saw very tiny white versions of these as well, possibly the same mite but in baby form? I did not see any nits on the base of their feathers, so I believe they did not have any lice, but this should work on lice too.
Here is what I did, you will need 2 buckets large enough to dunk the hen in:
In one bucket, dilute the whole 16 oz. bottle in 10 quarts of warm water (enough to fill up a bucket that will completely cover the hen.) This solution ends up being a more concentrated solution than is recommended on the bottle, but less concentrated that the expensive livestock version called Elector PSP.
In a second bucket, fill with warm water and some dish soap.
Set up the buckets in the shade because UV rays will break down the Spinosad.
I washed each hen briefly in the dishsoap/water bucket to get them wet and remove any dirt on them. Get them soaked all the way up to their head. If you have polish you should probably get their crest wet too. Pay special attention to their back feathers. It is tough to get them soaked all the way to their base, you will have to massage them a bit!
After she is totally wet, place her into the Spinosad bucket. Again massage that solution into all her fluff, up to her head. Be sure to get all the way into the base of the feathers.
Then I let her dry off in a shaded area, because UV light destroys the Spinosad. Do this on a HOT DAY for their comfort, unless you are up for blow drying them dry!
What to do with the leftover Spinosad water?
I poured it over all the roosting bars, into the nest boxes (after removing wood shavings) and also into the sand litter I use in the sleeping coop. When the mites are not on the birds, they like to hide in wooden crevices, especially where the birds sleep.
I have a small flock so this bath method was very feasible for me. It has been almost a week, I checked them often to see if the mites are there. The second day I found a lot of dead mites on them, after that, they are mite free.
Best of all, NO EGG WITHDRAWAL PERIOD!!!
Monterey Garden Insect Spray, 16 oz. bottle
Active ingredient : SPINOSAD .5%
~$30
I believe my flock had the red northern fowl mite on them. There were little red bugs on their underfeathers and sometimes I saw very tiny white versions of these as well, possibly the same mite but in baby form? I did not see any nits on the base of their feathers, so I believe they did not have any lice, but this should work on lice too.
Here is what I did, you will need 2 buckets large enough to dunk the hen in:
In one bucket, dilute the whole 16 oz. bottle in 10 quarts of warm water (enough to fill up a bucket that will completely cover the hen.) This solution ends up being a more concentrated solution than is recommended on the bottle, but less concentrated that the expensive livestock version called Elector PSP.
In a second bucket, fill with warm water and some dish soap.
Set up the buckets in the shade because UV rays will break down the Spinosad.
I washed each hen briefly in the dishsoap/water bucket to get them wet and remove any dirt on them. Get them soaked all the way up to their head. If you have polish you should probably get their crest wet too. Pay special attention to their back feathers. It is tough to get them soaked all the way to their base, you will have to massage them a bit!
After she is totally wet, place her into the Spinosad bucket. Again massage that solution into all her fluff, up to her head. Be sure to get all the way into the base of the feathers.
Then I let her dry off in a shaded area, because UV light destroys the Spinosad. Do this on a HOT DAY for their comfort, unless you are up for blow drying them dry!
What to do with the leftover Spinosad water?
I poured it over all the roosting bars, into the nest boxes (after removing wood shavings) and also into the sand litter I use in the sleeping coop. When the mites are not on the birds, they like to hide in wooden crevices, especially where the birds sleep.
I have a small flock so this bath method was very feasible for me. It has been almost a week, I checked them often to see if the mites are there. The second day I found a lot of dead mites on them, after that, they are mite free.
Best of all, NO EGG WITHDRAWAL PERIOD!!!
http://www.ibtimes.com/bedbugs-no-m...european-folk-remedy-proves-effective-1184019
Here is an organic method for trapping bed bugs I just found. Kidney bean leaves. Not sure about using them around chickens, but for you and your kids bedtime sleep it might do the trick. If you can find some. May have to grow them.
I'm going crazy!We discovered tiny (.5 mm or less) black bugs in the chicken tractor about 1 wk ago. They crawl mostly on me (and the chickens). My 6 kids aren't bothered or don't notice them. They (or something else) are biting me at night and I am itchy all night and wake up with new small red bumps around my underarms and upper thighs. I haven't actually seen any bugs on the bed. The chickens are chewing on themselves and only gently getting each others bugs. Other than that they look fine. My kids are the ones who have been locking the chickens up at night and filling their food and water most of the time so I don't know when this started. They also spend a lot of time holding them and watching them inside the run part. I'm 6.5 months pg and haven't been going outside much because of the heat (near Houston). They are almost 20 weeks so hubby has checked for eggs every couple of days and hadn't noticed them.
Yesterday we bathed the chickens in about 3 gallons of water mixed with about a cup of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castille soap and a few drops of Eucalyptus oil (stuff I had). They were rinsed twice, the 2nd rinse had a LITTLE tea tree oil in it. I wanted to let the soap sit on them for a while but one of my helpers kept disappearing so some of them got rinsed pretty quickly. After we were done they still seemed to have a few live bugs on them but it was better and they looked beautiful. My husband jet sprayed the chicken tractor (with water) and said the number of bugs was disgusting. After spraying and cleaning everything out he sprayed the whole thing with Garlic Barrier and a little neem oil (things we had). When we still saw a few bugs crawling on the wood my husband sprayed an orange oil and Dr. Bronner's mix I had for the garden. We finally got food grade DE and sprinkled that all over everthing with a sifter and today we'll squirt it more thoroughly in the cracks with a mustard bottle (pointed spout). It hasn't really smelled much and I've been too tired and hot to check on the coop part. I really wish I had done the DE from the beginning. Also, they now have a dust bath with ashes and DE but we haven't dusted the individual chickens with anything yet because I (the director) got tired and hungry. The 6 patches of grass/dirt where we rotate the tractor were also sprayed with garlic barrier and later sprinkled with DE. We all immediately showered when we came in last night and threw the clothes and towels in the wash. This morning I was the one to let the chickens out into the run part and fill the food and water (QUICKLY) and I have had more bugs on my face and hands than ever!!! They have been around my desk and on the leather couch (which I haven't done anything about). Atleast that's where I catch them on me.
So, what are these evil things and what do I do? I know about all the chemical treatments and I don't want to use them or have my kids (15yo-3yo) handling the chickens who've been dusted with them. I guess I want to know if there's anything else natural first and how to get them out of my house!
Sorry so long!
p.s. They were extremely cute sitting in the sun wrapped in towels. They must have been in shock. Most of them just sat there and a couple took a short nap. There are 14, by the way.
Here is an organic method for trapping bed bugs I just found. Kidney bean leaves. Not sure about using them around chickens, but for you and your kids bedtime sleep it might do the trick. If you can find some. May have to grow them.
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