Mites! Eggs due to hatch in 3 days! Is Sevin safe?

[6chickens in St. Charles]

We've let our gray Silkie Chloe sit on eggs, and now her basket is full of mites! Loaded! We researched all morning and plan to burn the contents of the coop in our firepit, wash everything with Dawn, dust with Sevin or whatever we can buy today that's insecticidal and create a new nest in a plastic bin after the coop and birds are all clean and dusted.

Poor Chloe, she is probably exhaused from brooding with mites eating her up all night!

Her first egg may be due to hatch in 3 days. Would insecticide be too poisonous around the eggs and hatching chicks?

The (4) birds have a few spas around the yard, which include wood ash from our firepit. A good inspection found no visible mites on 2 birds and one mite around the vent of 1 bird, and the broody Chloe hasn't been inspected yet, we will inspect and treat her after we have all our supplies lined up today.

Today's research kind of points to the "roost mites" kind which swarm off the coop/bedding/walls/roost after sundown to munch all night on the birds. But Chloe's infestation is so bad if you touch her basket, your hand will be rapidly swarmed with the tiny gray-brown bugs, they move very fast!

Any advice? Is Sevin too poisonous around the eggs and hatching chicks?
Thank you all for reading and responding!

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

This is just a bump, no replies yet.

Our mighty mite eviction and extermination project is done. We read all about it on the internet, then went out for supplies, came home and worked very very hard undoing, cleaning and redoing our coop. We washed and blowdried our Silkie Chloe. She had a serious infestation around her vent, and some scabby bits on her belly and knees. Now she is clean and darling, she appears pretty happy about her spa treatment.

I went back to the coop after sundown to put my hands all over the chickens to check for more mites, came up clean every time. Not like last nite, when I touched the bird my hand swarmed with grey-brown tiny mites.

It was a lot of work cleaning and dusting the birds and their environment, and burning their cute basket. Now I believe eggs and chicken ought to cost a lot more money.

Next time I eat eggs and chicken, I will say a prayer of thanks to the hard working person that put that clean healthy food in my gullet!

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

We used "Adams" dog flea and tick shampoo. It smells very nice!

 

[reesepoultry]

I don't know if the dust will hurt the eggs, but I do know that the mite will hurt the chicks possibly kill the chicks. I would dust her. This is just my opinion.
once the chicks hatch the mites will get on the chicks and suck there blood until there so weak they die. Chicks are very fragile to mites.

This is why I would dust. At least you may have a chance if you dust. if you don't dust the mites will kill the chicks.

Michelle

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

Quote:
Thank you! I figured the same. I hope its ok. Its not Sevin, nobody at pet stores or the feed stores sell it. But it seems to work very well, its a "pyrethrum" or something like that.

 

[farmerbrownsdaughter]

This is interseting, I just posted the same problem, ( down to the hatch days remaining) in the predator and pest section, my concern is the instructions say NOT to contaminate eggs, so I am wondering to, what do I do?

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

Quote:
Hey there, I think I just responded to your thread too!

Lucky for us, we're not all that "into" our eggs hatching. We're sort of just letting it happen, there's really not much effort going into her brood. But if it WERE more important, like if one of the kids was doing a 4H project or if I were a breeder or something, I'd be freaking out. Now, I'm wondering just how broody our Chloe really is.....maybe she was just anemic from the mites..............

We'll see.

 

[farmerbrownsdaughter]

Too funny, we are both in the same boat! The stuff I bought is just called "dusting powder" 5% w/w carbaryl, whatever that is, "avoid contaminating nests, eggs, feeding and water troughs" I wonder if that advice is for eating eggs?