e with feather mites! We dusted them last Sunday,Feather Mites

[feathersnfur]

We are having a terrible time with feather mites! They have been dusted and dipped in the past week, and they are STILL crawling with mites! My husband has cleaned the pens and they were sprayed about two months ago....We have used Sevin dust and Permethrin 10% and I even sprayed them with Adams yesterday. Help!!!

 

[allaboutdemchicks]

Perhaps this will help:
http://www.shagbarkbantams.com/mites.htm

The author discusses how to treat a severe infestation. Good luck, and keep working at it!

 

[feathersnfur]

Thank you....it looks like we are in for a ton of work...we have close to 150 birds and I know the lareg fowl and bantam RIR are infested. I don't know about the light brahmas or the millie fleurs....I'm afraid to check!

 

[LynneP]

Gosh, I wish you well. After the cleanup you might want to add no-pest strips to your regimen, about 1 for every 100 sq feet of floor space in the coop. Could be caged in hardware cloth to keep birds away unless you have a spot high enough. Contain dichlorovos and are a preventive for fleas, ticks, mites and ticks. Also knock down mosquitoes and the various flies one sees near barns and coops.

I've used them for years in the barn, I was tipped to their existance by a vet.
Avoid hanging over food/water. Can be used in houses, restaurants, hospitals...if used in homes you will never see a flea. Adults are killed if they come in on a pet, so eggs never get started.

Sold at ag stores, TSC, Home Hardware, co-op stores, tack shops...

 

[feathersnfur]

Thanks for all the info....I'm afraid this is going to be a daunting task...I wonder if we will ever get the mite problem under control. It seems like we do for a minute and then bam! they're baaaackkk!!!

 

[LynneP]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/LC-mites.html

Well you got me reading on the subject. I know that the northern fowl mite is very common here. What I'm repeating here is oral advice from a guy who knows a lot about poultry management. He keeps about 100 layers, Jim always says '99', because that's the number allowed without becoming part of the egg marketing system.

The neatest thing about his setup is the empty coop space he always has. It's his 'hospital room', but teally it's just a 10 x 10 space set up with nesting boxes (3), a roost and a platform for food./water. This is the most pristine room in his setup- very few seams or cracks and when you look up he's sealed every crack in the ceiling. Platforms and roosts have no cracks anywhere and the platforms are primed, caulked and painted with latex so they can be scraped clean and/or disinfected without getting wet. He uses a dichlorovos pest strip up high and before this space is used, often as brooder space or for young pullets, he makes sure there is no evidence of lice or mites. He uses DE and Stable Boy on the floor and sprinkles with Dri-Kill, too. If he is brooding birds, the coop which will receive them is already empty and ready for them.

Jim feels that barn clothing, boots, egg cartons, egg baskets and anything that you carry back and forth from the coop might carry mites, or lice eggs. When he gets to the house he dusts his boots with Dri-Kill and leaves them in the porch then heads to the washing machine and dumps all his clothes in to be washed immediately. He wears flannel-lined overalls and has several pairs. He uses Javex bleach on them frequently. He's mentioned that bales of bedding should be dusted with Dri-Kill before being opened and especially before being emptied into a coop.

Hie level of stewardship is exemplary. The perimeter of the runs is dusted year-round, and every threshold is dusted daily. Jim's days of having any pests on his chickens are long gone.

He buys his day-olds from the same source as me, in fact I found out about it from him. An agent called 'Miss Feathers' selects the birds and she is rated #1 in the Maritimes for locating and providing top chicks to co-ops in the region.

My heart goes out to you as you cope and I know you'll get this under control. I now have a pristine place for sick birds and we're partitioning another section of the barn for our next flock. Jim has been active with 4-H because of his children and often lectures to backyard poultry owners when asked.

Oh and he doesn't let me, or anyone else in with his birds. That was made clear from the beginning. But if he ever sold one to me, I'd accept in a heartbeat.