Mites - Always an ongoing battle?

[craz e laid e]

I had heard that chickens like to dust in wood ashes, so I was checking it out this morning. It seems that you combine them with dirt/sand and some also add DE or Sevin, and it also keeps the mites/lice etc. off of their birds. That way they would be getting a "treatment" every time they dusted themselves. I have never had a problem with bugs, but I'm going to start doing this as a preventitive. Good Luck.

 

[Gypsi]

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I'm new to chickens, but having had a house in Dallas in the early 80's, in a part of it where many people had kept many dogs for many years, I'm not new to bug blocking.
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I painted every interior surface of my coop when I built it, except the nest boxes I think. (will have to look when I go out later. 2 coats of Kilz2 latex. (I really hate bugs, especially the ones I can't see.)

And get some agricultural dusting sulfur, and sulfur your fenceline, focusing on your border with the neighbor's birds. Snakes won't cross it, ticks and fleas don't like it, I don't think ticks will cross it. most bugs just hate the stuff. I use it more for snakes around here than anything else. Non toxic. You can do a world of good with a visible one inch line of powder.

Then get everybody else's advice for the birds themselves.

I use old shovel handles for perches - the hardwood ones will take orange oil, nothing can penetrate the nylon ones. And while I've used Sevin dust, I've switched to DE because I also keep fish and bees.

But Sulfur on the fencelines is just the best, and nice bright white paint. I did the inside of my greenhouse coop with it too, right away. Before any critters could move in. For a yard pesticide I use beneficial nematodes. Applied at the right temp, the critters just keep eating bugs as long as the yard is moist enough for them to live in.

Gypsi

 

[Tracydr]

Quote:
What the heck would the county do about it?

 

[Gypsi]

A smart county would dust with sulfur, but no telling.

 

[darin367]

buy them a big bottle of ivermectin, put a bow on it and offer to show them how to use it........ fill your pockets with sevin dust, sprinkle it around their yard while your over there showing them how to use the ivermectin..... seriously, maybe they don't know they have a problem, or they don't know what to do about it.... they have alot of birds so ivermectin is the only way to go... do it in the eve or early morning while birds are roosting.... i lock em in at night, take em out 1 at a time in the morning, treat them, and let em into the run so i know they all get a dose....

 

[galanie]

I have not had a mite problem ever as far as I know. I have a spot where I burn brush and trimmings from the trees (illegal really here in the city, but I'm just having a barbeque! Really!) and after it's cooled down they LOVE dust bathing in those ashes. I also use Eprinex as there is no egg withdraw from that and it worms them too.

 

[mstricer]

Quote:
If some one gave me a bottle of wormer for cattle, I would look at them like the were crazy. She never said whether or not the neighbor was the culprit, many of us rush to blame someone else, before looking to ones own problem. Paint, change roost and use DE on the roost and in nesting boxes.

 

[scooter147]

If anyone has a sure fire way of getting rid of scaley leg mites I'd love to hear from you.
I've tried it all, Vetx, vasaline, WD40, used and non used motor oil, veggie oil, Adams Flea and Tick with IG, changed out the roost, painted the place with roost paint. Some of the things seem to work for a while then bang their back.

 

[RHRanch]

Quote:
ivermectin gets rid of scaley mites

 

[RHRanch]

Quote:
If some one gave me a bottle of wormer for cattle, I would look at them like the were crazy. She never said whether or not the neighbor was the culprit, many of us rush to blame someone else, before looking to ones own problem. Paint, change roost and use DE on the roost and in nesting boxes.

My neighbors would not go to the trouble to dose thier birds with ivemectin. They keep them well and clean, but I myself helped the kid dose her bantams for scaley leg mite. They run a business growing out birds for people to eat, and sell eggs. They might dust thier birds, but I doubt it. i would not bother them about this in any case. I have about 75+ birds at any time. I use ivermectin and I dust. I just find it annoying that I can noe seem to prevent the mites from recurring. I am always dusting, spraying, etc....