I think red mite killed my broody

[OregonChickenGal]

Plain yogurt is real good also. Flea shampoo will not get rid of mites. You need to dust her with Sevin 5%. Back of neck, under wings, stomach area and vent area. Don't get it in her face.

 

[Rennie]

Sevin is on my shopping list too, as is Total mite kill Poultry Shield and DE .. I will illiminate the problem if it kills me

 

[Rennie]

She didnt make it through the night ...

 

[CMV]

So sorry.

Now you need to focus on the rest of your flock. They still have a big problem. Put Oxine on your shopping list. It is a cleanser used to de-bug housing. Use it as directed to treat the coop. Clean your coop from top to bottom. I use a shop vac to remove bedding. It works great. I'd recommend vacuuming the interior of the coop out and then spraying Oxine on every surface, especially the roosts which is where the bugs tend to congregate when not on the birds. Some folks choose to use linseed oil on their roosts to prevent this kind of thing. I personally don't use it, but my roosts are painted so I don't need to. You need to dust the rest of your flock ASAP. When you put in their new bedding I'd liberally sprinkle some dust in there as well. You will need to repeat all this in 7-10 days, so go easy on the bedding. Then I would institute a bug check routine to make sure you don't have a repeat of this.

Mites are a nuisance. They're also rapidly fatal as you have discovered. Keep a close eye on the rest of the flock. Some Poly-Vi-Sol in their water would help immensely. Good luck.

 

[OregonChickenGal]

So sorry.

 

[elmo]

So sorry. A very experienced poultry keeping friend of ours lost some chicks last summer to nestbox mites. It happens, and it's awful.

I've never read about Oxine being effective against mites, though. It's a disinfectant, not a pesticide. You can use Sevin or a permethrin based poultry dust. Do be sure to retreat in a week or two to catch the mites that hatch out after your first treatment (the pesticide won't kill the eggs).

http://ohioline.osu.edu/vme-fact/0018.html

Oh, by the way: if it's possible for you simply to throw out the infected nestboxes and start over with fresh ones (and the bedding inside, of course), that might actually be easier than trying to kill all the mites that have worked their way into the crevices in wood. That's why I use plastic storage bins for nestboxes. There are no crevices in plastic where mites can hide. I change bedding regularly, and always dust the inside of the box with poultry dust before I put in fresh bedding.