hi everyone

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acrechick

acrechick

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Hi,I'm a smallholder in Lancashire and love nothing more than being in the countryside with our entourage of animals plants and great wild birds to watch.I have a twitter account too which I called equibanter.I've joined today because I'm losing the will to live with redmite in our coop and seriously considering placing an advert for someone to rehome my lovely ten hens with all their stuff
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.Its upsetting.
 
Hi :welcome from Yorkshire UK

Glad you could join the flock! I know just how you feel with the redmite, I'm obsessed with them. I have had some in my coops this summer and it's been a long job to get rid of them. I've not totally got rid of them all but they are far less in numbers so the eradication programme continues.
For me the plan of attack has been to power wash the coops out away from where they are usually kept. Remove everything you can ie perches etc before washing out. Wash in every nook and cranny that you can find. They will hide in the smallest of crevices. Once dry give it a really good spray with mite killer. I use the nettex and have found it to be the best at killing them ~
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Once it's dry I give the whole coop a dusting of smite the mite powder which is just DE earth but seems to keep them at bay. The DE causes the mites exoskeleton to dry up and they die.
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Get it every where you can add apply to the underneath of the perches too. Mites will crawl onto your birds from under the perches and onto their legs so getting under there really helps. Cover the ends of perches too before replacing them.

I check and repeat the process but not power wash every 3 days. They have a life cycle of a week so you need to keep on repeating the process. I promise you can get on top of these horrid little things with patience and time. Every 3 days is vital!!

Good luck and let us know how you get on.
Enjoy BYC :frow
 
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Welcome to Backyard chickens-

I'm currently under siege with red mites but of the horticultural kind. I hybridize houseplants and have 100's of plants growing indoors, under lights. I don't want poisonous fumes in the house - the less toxic products don't seem to be working. I would chuck them all and start over but, I've been doing this for11-12 yrs. and can't duplicate the hybrid successes. I've been ready to "throw in the towel," many times but, I am not going to let tiny bugs win!!

My situation is not the same as yours but, I can really feel what you are experiencing. Hope we both will find a satisfactory conclusion.
 
Hi everyone,thank you for your lovely messages.I've decided to keep the girls as I do love hens but when it becomes twice the work as all the other animals we have,it just becomes a bit much sometimes.All my girls are lovely and healthy looking Barr two who have list son feathers off their necks,I put it down to broody ness then spotted redmite.I always use smite and feed food grade DE to all my animals,they also have a tin bath for dust bathing in it.I also used Raid coz I'm sick of finding them.I powder their coop every few days because I don't want the itchy feeling either :( .We have decided to dismantle and get rid of their huge coop and opt for one of those small manufactured types.The hens are freerange.They'll probably think they're being punished moving from their coop to a small one.Trying to figure out how to add photos.I'm photo mad
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.I add the photo but it doesn't show up x
 
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