Chicken Mites

[Hipchicker]

My coop is infected with mites, I cleaned the coop and the nesting boxes and spread diatomaceous earth in the nesting boxes and all over the floor, and cracks, and filled the nesting boxes with fresh bedding yesterday. Today I went into the coop for no more than a couple of minutes, when I came out I was covered in mites. How long does it take for diatomaceous earth to kill mites?

 

[JaeG]

In my experience it doesn't. I found thousands of mites quite happily crawling around in it so I no longer use it. Permethrin is the easiest treatment but it does need to be repeated until the life cycle of the mites has been broken, so about every 5 days for a total of at least 3 treatments. Mites are frustrating things to deal with but it's important to get on top of them as they can badly affect your chickens quite quickly.

 

[cmom]

Belated I have never had any luck with DE either. I use permethrin. It works great. No insecticide kills the pest eggs so repeated weekly treatments are needed as the pests eggs hatch out for 3 or 4 weeks. I use the concentrate but I have several coops and when I treat one coop, I treat them all. I also use poultry dust and put it in the nest boxes. Good luck...