Mites won't die, all over my house now - new question #55=grain mites?

[Miss Lydia]

scg, I believe if you had the kind of mites that get on chickens you would not be living in your house. I had them on me and in my hair and believe me you would know. Hope your babies enjoy their new home, and you finally get those things out of your house. Might have to get rid of the meal worm thingy. It's expensive but I feed mine the dried meal worms.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I got rid of EVERYTHING I could last week (or was it earlier this week... my schedule is so messed up): all the meal worms and parts, any open container of food, the original brooder and all the feeders/waterers in the basement... anything that looked like it could harbor mites including decorative baskets upstairs and area rugs.

It saddened me because I had been doing the meal worms since April and they had just become full sized too. Such is life.

I dusted the kids one more time with Sevin and permethrin dusts then stuck them on a roost in the big house. I stayed in there about 20 minutes, they're really happy. I love the sounds everyone makes at night, all the little trrrrrs of content. It's very relaxing if you can block the sounds of defecation

I hope the kids don't run away from home tomorrow, I was planning on putting them in a wire cage in the coop for a day or two to imprint their home on them, but I feel so bad for them being stuck in my basement for 8 weeks and wormed and dusted ad nauseum. They back away and make a shrieking noise when they see me coming for them now. I don't like that at all. I'm going to let chickens be chickens and hope they follow the rest of the flock back to the coop tomorrow night.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I don't remember how many chicks you said you have but remember the older ones will pick on the smaller ones and they have to work out pecking order, so keep a close eye on them, and if it was me I wouldn't let them out by themselves tomorrow, keep them seperated from the flock but where they can see them and both can interact with each other ,but safe from pecking. Or you might have a bigger problem on your hands. Chickens can be awfully mean as you probably know. Keep us posted.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

There's 30 "original" chickens - all large fowl but I think the (1) phoenix should be an exception as she's TINY. She gets picked on a lot. This is her chance to show her stuff.

The 3 newbies are: tiny feather footed bantam mix female, and 2 mixed bantam-large fowl turkens (1 male, 1 female). Those 2 are currently bigger than the phoenix but about half the size of most of the other girls.

I plan on getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow like usual (for some reason my leghorns get up at the first sign of light) and monitoring the situation. If it's reasonably under control I'll let it be. If not, I've got 3 cages I can put into action. Yay for being off work AND call an entire 24 hrs!

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

The Pest Management Office at UMaine called me back this morning. The guy said "I'm not a mite expert but these appear to be grain or cheese mites and not bird mites." The apparently have a hairy abdomen, something not commonly seen in bird mites.

I am thrilled (never thought I'd be thrilled about a hairy abdomen). Thank you to the original poster of the grain mite suggestion.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I didn't think they were bird mites, so happy to hear that you now know. Hope you can get the rest out of your house. I am hopefully finished with treating my birds for the real thing. Never had them before this month, wow they are hard to deal with. Oh yeah Hairy bellies never did much for me either lol

 

[Duramaxgirl]

Yay good for you scg! I'm glad there not the blood sucking kind... Thanks for the update.

 

[DTRM30]

I think I'm traumatized for life now !!!!!

Glad to read they aren't blood sucking mites, but still ! It's making my skin crawl just thinking about it ! I have paranoid thoughts after handling my chickens when I treat them for mites - I feel like I have them crawling on me for a week - let alone having THAT in my house ! Yikes !

I know this is an old post .. - sorry - I was looking for something else and came across it, but it just really was like - OMG !

 

[Miss Lydia]

when they got into my hair I was like wow this can't be true, they never bit me just were crawling around so i got a quick shower washed my hair and that was the end of it, but the next day I had to clean out all the old bedding inside chicken and duck coops spray everything down and replace bedding then turn around and do it again in 7 days, now I use preventive instead of waiting till it hits..funny thing is I checked my chickens constantly for mites and lice and never saw them until they got on me. the mites are so tiny.

 

[MuranoFarms]

I have to admit....I didn't read the whole thread, but did you try spraying them with Raid cockroach spray? If it'll kill a roach, it will certainly kill mites! At least it will help cut down the numbers tilll you can get a pro out there.

Good luck!