Mites in OSB/Pressboard walls - will painting help?

[JoyfulPromise]

Hello everyone,
Ok, so 2 years ago I made (or rather I designed and my Dad and brother made) a tractor coop for my banty chickens. The coop part is 3' x 4' with a slanted roof starting at 4' high. It has a 2x2 frame (to make it lighter for moving the whole coop & run), and OSB/pressboard walls. We painted the outside of the walls, but did not paint the inside, as I worried about the paint fumes for my chickens. Each spring/summer I seem to have a buildup of mites around the roosts and I thouroughly clean and spray and dust the coop which seems to get rid of them... for a while. This year I had a bad bunch of mites around the joints of the custom removable roost that my Dad had made, so I ended up getting rid of it and putting in new roosts with less joints - with supports right off the side wall. Just now I was checking the roost and saw some mite buildup where the pieces rest on each other, so I was spraying it with a natural essential oil/alcohol spray that really kills the buggers instantly... but as I moved to the part where the roost support connects to the wall... I began to notice dark little masses of mites in all the cracks of the pressboard on that side of the coop!!!!

I sprayed them all as best I could, but now I am wondering what to do? I am sure there are more of the nasty bloodsuckers in the pressboard cracks, but I really don't have the funds to build a whole new coop right now out of real plywood! I can MAYBE replace just that side wall separately, but that is still iffy, and there are probably mites hiding in cracks on the other pressboard walls of the coop too.

SO...one thought I had was to paint the inside walls with a thick coat of paint or some sealant or something that will get into the cracks and kill or prevent mites from building up there. Is this a good idea? I avoided painting the inside before, because of the fear of paint fumes, but I see that a LOT of you have painted the inside of your coops, and I am wondering if that might be a quick answer here? My coop is well ventilated - it has a vent/window near the top of each wall. I will try and get a picture of the coop on here soon.

I greatly welcome any ideas/suggestions! Please let me know if any of you have had problems or experience with this in your coops and what you did to solve it!


Thanks so much!

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I'd paint the inside for sure and then try to seal any crevices they can hide in. Your battle with mites sounds much like mine with poultry ticks. I ended up having to seal every crack and crevice large enough for a tick to squeeze into and rethinking my roost arrangement too. Check out my (incomplete) tick page in my sig. line. Good luck!

 

[JoyfulPromise]

Here is a quick overview of my coop, if that helps at all...

This is the whole Tractor coop & Run. We pull it forward to fresh grass using the handles on the bottom.


Here is the inside wall with the roosts... excuse the messiness, it is due for a cleanout anyway...

And here are a couple of close-ups of the mites in the pressboard cracks in the walls...


Gallo Del Cielo - Thanks for the input - I checked out your page on Poultry ticks... Eww! I am glad I don't have those right now! For now I think I will try and clean it out really well, and then paint and coat or caulk all the cracks as best I can. At least I will know better next time when building a coop.

 

[foxinachickenhouse]

You might try masonry primer and then paint. Masonry primer is thick and goopy, made to fill in rough surfaces like cinder block construction and brick to prep for painting. That might be enough for a awhile or you can paint over it to get more life out of your coop. I get my coop paint in the mistint section of the hardware store for about $5 a gallon. I would bleach scrub the walls, let dry thoroughly and then apply this stuff.

 

[chfite]

I would clean it as well as you can, let it dry, then prime with Zinsser 123. It is thick and can be brushed into the nooks and crannies. It will stick to almost anything. Then two coats of semi-gloss paint. The paint will dry and have no fumes after several hours. The fumes from the latex paint likely won't harm them in such an open area. You could prime one morning, it would be ready for a finish coat in an hour, second coat in 4 hours. Dry by bed-time for the chickens to go in without any worries.

Primer and two coats will fill the rough places in OSB quite well. I use it in my coops.

Chris

 

[JoyfulPromise]

Thank you Chris! I really appreciate the details on the type of primer and paint and thoughts about drying time. That sounds like it will be perfect for what I was thinking! Hopefully I can get the paint and primer tomorrow and get started either tomorrow or Tuesday.


Edit: I just looked up the Zinsser 123 at Home Depot and all they had is a spray can. Menards has the spray as well, or they have it in a quart or gallon can. Will the spray work, or would using a can be better?

 

[joan1708]

I have an unusual suggestion that I have not tried, (I haven't had mites yet). After you get your coop completely cleaned out, and before you paint it, you could get a hair blow dryer and heat up those crevices to get the mites out of there and kill them. I'm told they can't take temps over 130 degrees. I heard about this "technique" as a way to find bedbugs in houses. You take your blow dryer (while it is on) and go along all the cracks and crevices and the heat will make them come out. Seems to me, it would be successful in the chicken coop as well. Of course the coop would have to be cleaned out first, or "stuff" will be flying everywhere. I think in your case after you have it cleaned out and mites killed, you might caulk the cracks and crevices before painting to make the coop less hospitable to mites.

 

[chicken pickin]

Wow i wouldnt have even thought about them climbing in all those crevices like that. Now Im nervous because my whole coop is basically made out of that. I would have bought the real plywood but my husband and father went material shopping and picked the OSB. I also almost painted inside then decided against it. Im thinking that this weekend coming up painting is on my to do list. Just as a percaustion I really hate bugg and would love to avaoid them. Good luck with painting your coop I hope it seals it all up and your bug problems go away. Lets us know how it goes.