mites, mites, mites

[pslane]

I am a fan of Sevin dust, too. But since the govenment stopped letting us by it in bulk here, it's impossible to use in a large covered walk-in chicken yard like mine. I changed the straw in all the nest this week and put sevin in the bottom. But I believe I also have the yard mites under control. I got about 100 pounds of DE and poured it out all over the chicken hard and the coops, too. Afterwards it looks like Anarctica but I think I've killed most of the mites. Ivermectin went on their behinds and afterwards NuStock on any inflamed areas. After the next rain, I'll do the DE again.
I still don't have any wood ash.

 

[Eggcessive]

You really need to clean out all of the pine shavings/hay/straw bedding in the coop before you spray or dust everything with sevin or neem oil, then put fresh shavings back down. You can just paint your roosts instead of putting toxic chemicals on them to seal them from mites. And the wood ash is great for all year long prevention in their dust baths or just using straight on the birds to dust.

 

[Haley Clark]

What is your opinion on DE. I have heard it is a treatment for worms and just about any other pests out there and it works for just about any animal. Have you fed it to your chickens as a dewormer?

 

[pslane]

I was skeptical about DE but at the point I'm at now I was ready to try everything and anything. I now know for certain that if used in large quantities, DE will clear out the mites. And the good thing is, you're right, it's worming them at the same time. It can even be mixed in their water, so if I get some in the water dishes, I don't worry.

Just a dab of DE here and there will not do much goodl. It has to be loads of it.

 

[missnu01]

Easiest way to get wood ash is to find some wood, hollow a pit out on the ground and burn the wood...then let it all burn out and cool off and then just shovel out the ashes and use them for whatever you want...Lol. Not hard to come by.
So burn you some wood and use the ashes for a dust bath spot, and then go to a garden center and buy a big bag of sevin dust and just cover everything in it...not heavy, but make sure that everything gets some on it...roosts, bedding, chickens...so on and so forth...and you don't have to get rid of every mite...it is common for chickens to have a number of mites at anytime..that is why they dustbathe, to keep the numbers down, but once you have too many mites, then you have to try to kill them off...so use the sevin dust and the wood ash dust bath and you shouldn't have too much of an issue with the mites for awhile. You can also add a little sevin or poultry dust in the wood ashes for the dust bath...that way everyone that bathes gets some mite poison...

 

[Haley Clark]

Ok thanks! I will have to pick up some DE, how can you tell your chickens are infested with mites?

 

[pslane]

Turn them over and look around the vent area. It should be clean with healthy looking feathers. Mites make my chicken's bottoms look dark colored and if it's bad, they make sores, too. Look real close and you can see them moving.

 

[ozarkchicks]

http://www.cedarcidestore.com/cedarproducts.html Try this, just get one of the liquids that you mix with water and then just dip your birds in it, then put it in a spray bottle and spray it around.

x 2

 

[Haley Clark]

Ok I will have to check my chickens!

 

[simplegirl1970]

Discovered yesterday that one of my hens has severe mites, nits on the shafts. Will have to do a thorough cleaning. Thanks for the tips. Is the Nu Stock for IrrItaed bottoms? I don't have Nu Stock and our local store doesn't have it. Would something like utter balm work?