Blue Egg Layers from University of Arkansas

[farmhand]

The best combo for me is the permethrin perimeter spray on everything so it soaks deep,deep into the wood, Eprinex topically along with the hanging pest strip Hot Shot which contains Dichlorvos.

What routine do you use. Every month? or spring? or...
So far I have never had a problem, but

 

[johnderosa1]

Just ordered some hot shot no pest strips + revolution.

 

[ronott1]

Just ordered some hot shot no pest strips + revolution.

Good Job!

 

[farmhand]

Just ordered some hot shot no pest strips + revolution.

Good Job!

Anyone care to elaborate on how to apply? How many strips per square foot? How often spray revolution? ect

 

[ronott1]

Anyone care to elaborate on how to apply? How many strips per square foot? How often spray revolution? ect

I found this:

Revolution for Chickens
(Selamectin) is approved for use in dogs and cats, but it has been shown to be safe and highly effective in off-label use for a range of ectoparasites and some endoparasites of a variety of small mammals and birds.
Revolution has been tested to be safe and effective on: Birds such as Chickens, Ducks, Parrots etc, Rabbits, Ferrets, Guinea Pigs, Hamsters & Gerbils, Rats and Mice and Hedgehogs.


Dosage:
Dosage for all animals as a general rule is a minimum of 6mg/kg, which is equal to 0.05ml per 1.0kg (dog tube).
(If you use the cat or puppy versions, you need to give double the amount as it is only half the strength)

A chicken 3kg and under require 0.15ml
A chicken 3-4kg will need at least 0.20ml

It's a good idea to dilute the dose 50:50 in some ethanol or isopropyl alcohol to make dosing easier. It can get a bit fiddly putting 0.15ml on a chicken’s neck skin, but is much easier when it is 0.30ml


My background:
I'm a chemist who has been selling Revolution 'kits' worldwide for the past 2 years. In the kit you get everything you need to easily divide the doses to all your pets. These kits are only economical if your pets are under 35lbs (16kg) - The lighter they are the cheaper it is.
A 3kg chicken will get 20 doses from the kit I sell.

From this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/704004/revolution-yay

I do not know about the strips but it is the same thing you use to kill flies. It is not safe to have in kitchens and food areas so I do not know if it gets into eggs.

 

[johnderosa1]

I found this:

Revolution for Chickens
(Selamectin) is approved for use in dogs and cats, but it has been shown to be safe and highly effective in off-label use for a range of ectoparasites and some endoparasites of a variety of small mammals and birds.
Revolution has been tested to be safe and effective on: Birds such as Chickens, Ducks, Parrots etc, Rabbits, Ferrets, Guinea Pigs, Hamsters & Gerbils, Rats and Mice and Hedgehogs.


Dosage:
Dosage for all animals as a general rule is a minimum of 6mg/kg, which is equal to 0.05ml per 1.0kg (dog tube).
(If you use the cat or puppy versions, you need to give double the amount as it is only half the strength)

A chicken 3kg and under require 0.15ml
A chicken 3-4kg will need at least 0.20ml

It's a good idea to dilute the dose 50:50 in some ethanol or isopropyl alcohol to make dosing easier. It can get a bit fiddly putting 0.15ml on a chicken’s neck skin, but is much easier when it is 0.30ml


My background:
I'm a chemist who has been selling Revolution 'kits' worldwide for the past 2 years. In the kit you get everything you need to easily divide the doses to all your pets. These kits are only economical if your pets are under 35lbs (16kg) - The lighter they are the cheaper it is.
A 3kg chicken will get 20 doses from the kit I sell.

From this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/704004/revolution-yay

I do not know about the strips but it is the same thing you use to kill flies. It is not safe to have in kitchens and food areas so I do not know if it gets into eggs.

Ron,

You are a wealth of information! This is great info. The strips say you shouldn't use them in areas occupied more than 4 hrs per day (humans). I am thinking about limited use in my coop. Take the birds out in the morning, treat them and clean the coop. Hang the strip (1 strip) while they are outside for the day. I would likely hang the strips a few more times after cleaning the coop as an added measure. I am also thinking about using 1 under each of my coops as a barrier to any mites lurking around the perimeter. I bought 5 of them and am still thinking about the safest, most effective use. You can seal them in an airtight container between uses in order to extend there shelf life so intermittent use is feasible. Anyway, I would really like to reduce or completely eliminate applying pesticides directly in the coop or on the birds (other than the revolution/cydectin spring and fall) and think these strips could help.

 

[enola]

Where do I find revolution?

 

[Hangtown Farms]

Good Job!

x2 I need to try them. Have not had a issue yet but I am sure its only a matter of time with all our wildlife and migrating birds

 

[dretd]

Quote:

Quote:
I had mite (red mites-- Dermanyssus gallinae) problems for 3 years until I figured out the source. If you don't the source you will never be able to manage the problem effectively, IMO.

These mites spend quite a lot of time off the host mainly in the cracks of the wood or other litter. My story is that barn swallows come in the spring and when they abandon the nests for a new one, the abandoned mites crawl down into the barn main area and set up shop in the wood siding and the hay stack. I was feeding the hay to my horse then coming up to the coop and checking the eggs and doing chores. The mites crawled onto my hands from handling the hay, hitchhiked to the coop then crawled into the nest box from there. It took me quite awhile to figure it out.

None of the products I was using initially worked well becasue I kept bringing more mites in--so may not have been a failure of the product, but a failure to identify why I had the problem in the first place. The other problems is that this mite hangs out and lays eggs in the wood and so surface treatments are not as effective--needs to penetrate deep into the wood. Even if you kill the motes the eggs will hatch out again so repeated treatment over time are necessary to completely get all the mites.

I hated sevin becasue it got all over me and the stuff is pretty nasty if you read up on it. The perimeter spray worked well in all the areas where the chickens hang out--I sprayed under bushes, the run, all wood to the point of run-off etc. I applied it about every 7 days (treated on the weekends), although if memory serves it is labeled for every 14. I thought this was too far out as the stuff seems to lose it potencey over time. Mixed it in a tank sprayer. You can spray the birds with it as well but read the label closely as the solution needs to be more dilute if you spray the birds directly. I only did this one time then realized with the Eprinex and hotshot it was unnecessary.

I did try frontline and I think it may have worked but since I didn't get the source...Revolution is also a very good product but I have not tried it. I have no problem with 0.15 ml. I use a 0.3 ml insulin syringe that I crack the needle off (use pliers and a bending twisting motion). The solvents in the frontline will eat the lubricant so the plunger only slides easily for the first few applications. I prepare many syringes so I can move to the next when one stops working well. I use this method for the Eprinex as well.

To help ID where you have mites I have used 2 methods
1--tap the wood repeatedly and the mites will sense the vibrations and literally come out of the woodwork. They are very tiny so you have to look carefully. It takes a minute or so. This is the method I used to identify areas that needed perimeter spraying (which turned out to be all of the interior wood walls of my barn among other things) or the no pest strip
2-overnight I leave a folded sheet of white typing paper in the nest box (or haystack or even equipment stored in the barn). The mites will crawl onto the paper and in the morning I will look for little brownish red specks. This is the method I used to check the kill progress where ever I was treating.

As for the Hot Shots. Yes, you are not supposed to use it indoors if its inhabited by people. My coop has quite a lot of ventilation and the chickens spend most of their days outside, so I just left it in there 24/7. I am cheap, so in the barn I did not put as many in as the directions called for. I found that the Dochlorvos (when new) was able to treat an area about 12 x 12. So I would either hang or set the strip pr put it on an elevated box/haystack/riding lawnmower seat etc and leave it for 3 days straight. This would kill the mites in the area (but not the eggs). I would then move it to another location and leave it, thereby killing mites there, then moving on etc. I was able to use just 2 strips for about 1200 sf this way. About every 10 days the strip rotated its way back to the original starting place killing any mites that had hatched in the mean time. I was very impressed in my haystack. I put it on the bales and next day there were no mites on my hands where there had been 10-20 (seriously, a really bad infestation) on my hand just from me tossing a couple of flakes.

The reason I settled on the Eprinex/Permethrin Perimeter/Dichlorvos strips is that the 1)Eprinex has a zero withdrawal for meat and milk so I assume eggs are ok (pitch 48 hours just to be sure) plus it gets some internal parasites as a bonus 2) the perimeter spray penetrated in the wood well, its inexpensive and I could get all hard-to-reach areas and avoid getting it on me 3)the strips permeated the areas also getting onto nooks and crannies that I could not reach with other methods. I avoided other methods that got more product on me, like the Sevin and that were more labor intensive like the steam cleaning. I am sure there are other methods that work well, too.

The frontline should work well in theory I abandoned it becasue I wasn't convinced that a spot treatment actually creeped its way across the whole bird as it is designed for mammals with oil containing glands all over the skin surface. There is a spray version and I did read a scientific paper out of South America where it worked well on chickens as a spray for mites. Not sure on egg withdrawal. It is regulated by the EPA (pesticides) not the FDA (drugs) so as a pesticide, there is no requirement to test for egg or meat withdrawal. It has an affinity for fat and since the egg yolk is made of fat, I figured I would go with other products that worked instead of wondering if the fipronil made its way inside the body when the chickens preened themselves.

Note for Revolution: it is available through veterinarians (made by the drug company Zoetis which used to be Pfizer). It is systemically absorbed and regulated as a drug by the FDA not the EPA. I could not find any drug withdrawal times for it so I would personally advise a 30 day withdrawal period since this is how long the product is labeled for re-application. If you like to read technical stuff, here is a link to the insert: https://www.revolution4dogs.com/media/5604/revo pi.pdf and here is a link tot he Zoetis website: https://www.revolution4dogs.com/is-revolution-right-for-your-dog

 

[Folly's place]

Thanks for the great information. I'm not convinced that diclorvos is a good choice; Frontline and Revolution are much less toxic to mammals, so make more sense to me. Ivermectin works well for many parasites and is easy to apply topically; I've used it here. Powders and sprays are tricky to use safely, and need to be repeated. I do use some poultry dust or Sevin dust on the coop floor before rebedding it after cleaning it out. Mites are the pits! I'll be treating my birds this week, thanks to the rotten house sparrows entering the coop. Again. Mary