Eglu after bad red mite infestation... how easy is it to clean, really?

[RebsChooks]

After three weeks of fighting red mite in our wooden coop, I am done. We have done everything we can, every three days. Yesterday we went over every inch of it with a hot hair dryer, and sprayed it completely and thoroughly with Smite, and dusted down with DE, but still on a piece of tape I put under the perch I found about a hundred well fed mites this morning. I cried.

I am ready for an Eglu, despite the cost. But, two questions for eglu people...

1. When I looked at the assembly video it does look like lots of parts! In my head it was moulded plastic and minimal joins, screws, etc. How easy is it to clean? How long does it take to dismantle, put all the pieces on the grass and spray it all down? It looks quite complicated and I am worried.

2. Can the cleaning be done on the sand in the run without completely dismantling it (once red mite is finally sorted)? We have a run with a door and the bulk of it won’t fit through the doorway.

Please help with any thoughts, as I am desperate. Still finding horrid little grey ones on me every time I step foot in the run even for a moment, and we have spent hours and hours doing everything and redoing everything.

I know an eglu is not a magic bullet but it does seem like we will be able to ensure the whole thing is mite free each time we clean it, and keep the nasty things out. We don’t feel we can do that with the wooden coop.

 

[RebsChooks]

Forgot to add, it is the Go Up we are thinking of. We have 5 bantams and the classic seems too small. We also like them to go “up” to bed.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I am not surprised that your methods did not work. Obviously you are trying to do things the organic/natural way and I can't make any recommendations on that but I did look at the info for "Smite" and it looks to be specifically for spider mites so that may be part of the problem. I've only ever had them in my wooden coop and for that I sprayed the crevices with permethrin premise spray and then sprinkled the roosts and other horizontal surfaces with poultry dust. I have not had them in my plastic coop, which was a modular shed that I expanded. The roosts and 4' of each side wall are wood but still no mites.

One option is to get a paint sprayer and paint the inside of your coop with several coats that throughly fill in pores, cracks, and crevices. That will cut down on the hiding/breeding places.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Also, if your birds free range at all, picking up parasites now and again is just part of the game. My birds were getting red mites annually with the songbird migrations. Luckily, they are easy to eradicate.

 

[PirateGirl]

I too have had a horrible mite infestation. Thanks to BYC I feel it is (mostly) behind me. I was told I would have to treat and retreat the coop and birds for at least 3 weeks to break the lifecycle of the mites. So your 3 week problem is not an excessively long time to treat mites, but rather an average. I used a permetherin based spray and noticed a drastic improvement after the first application. You mention cleaning the coop, but have you been spraying or dusting the birds? This is an important piece of it as well. Once a week spraying the coop and birds with permetherin for 3 weeks including changing out all the bedding. After that if there is any living sign of a mite, spray again, or do a maintenance spray in corners, on roosts, and in nest boxes, the most common hiding spots for mites from time to time. Good luck! If your infestation is that bad, perhaps a new coop is the way to go, but you may have to continue to treat the birds so you don't end up with mites in the new coop as well.

 

[RebsChooks]

SunHwaKwon, Smite is 13.25% permethrin, and Jeyes Fluid is far from organic/natural! Not sure what you think I should be using instead? Our coop has been repeatedly drenched in both of these products.

PirateGirl, yes sorry I forgotten to mention that the girls have been dusted in Red Mite Powder and also DE, plus a dose of Ivermectin in the second week.

What else should I be doing? You make a good point that three weeks is not long in this type of battle. I think I am just losing heart after being quite gung-ho and “let’s redouble our efforts” for quite a while. And despite having them on me every day. Ewwwww.

 

[RebsChooks]

Sun... you said “they are easy to eradicate...” But aren’t red mite notoriously hard to eradicate?!

 

[RebsChooks]

Will have a talk to hubby about painting the coop... I have read in my many hours in the Internet about this that white paint makes them loads easier to see too.

 

[RebsChooks]

PirateGirl, did you really mean you spray your birds with permethrin?!

 

[PirateGirl]

It sounds like you are on the right path. Can you set up temporary housing for your birds elsewhere on the property? Maybe if the birds and the coop are separate the birds won't get so bit up and be more comfortable and maybe breaking the life cycle of the buggers left in the coop will be easier if you eliminate their food source? It's just an idea. I don't know if it will really help or not.