Mites, of course....

[Hughes Wildlife Farm]

So, I know I have a girl or 2 with mites, just saw them yesterday.
I have a chick in isolation due to some type of illness. I kept checking her for mites, but nothing.
Yesterday I processed my meat birds, every single one was infested with mites.
This lead me to re check all my girls again. That's when I noticed 2 with mites. Still not on my isolation bird.
So looking thru this forum I read alot on how to treat or blow up my coop, but nothing really suggested what to do about the living mites on my girls.... Do i really just dust their pits and bum? Thats it?
I have the garden and poultry dust (which i dusted every girl with last night) but I heard putting apple cider vinagar in water and feeding broccoli or spinach... I will build dust boxes as we are getting too much rain lately and snow to come, so they will be limited on natural dusting material, but what advise is what?
I did clean coop and dusted with DE and new bedding... Do i do this again?
Is DE even worth it to kill these buggers? Or just a preventative and not a treatment?

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

Sevin dust works better than DE. @Texas Kiki would permethrin work to kill mites?

 

[Folly's place]

Permethrin dust is good, although the spray concentrate is really easiest and least expensive. It's available at farm stores; I get mine at the local TSC.
Carbaryl is not approved for use on chickens, avoid it!!!
Permethrin is fine in the USA with no egg withdrawal period, and works well.
DE is ineffective and very bad to inhale; just avoid it entirely.
When you find a mite on one bird, treat everyone and spray the coop, walls, roosts, everywhere.
Wear at least a N95 face mask, gloves, and long sleeves, and wash everything afterwards. Anything that's effective is good to wash off and not inhale.
Mites and lice will happen unless your birds are inside 24/7 with zero exposure to wild birds.
Mary

 

[Kiki]

Sevin dust works better than DE. @Texas Kiki would permethrin work to kill mites?

Yes.
Permethrin spray is my favorite because you can spray it every where.

Martin's PERMETHRIN spray

• Kiki
• Mar 22, 2018
• 6
• flies lice mites permethrin

IMG_20180322_102709

• Kiki
• Mar 22, 2018

IMG_20180924_091915

• Kiki
• Sep 24, 2018

An important thing to remember is you must treat the birds and the coop weekly for at least three weeks to break the mite's life cycle.

 

[Kiki]

DE is a waste of money.
Throw it away.

 

[ChickNanny13]

I use DE around my house perimeter tends to keep the crawly bugs out. Hubby hated it cause it's white on the sidewalk but he don't complain anymore. I also use it around the Chicken House & dust my girls as a "preventative" but I also rotate with the Garden & Poultry permethrin dust as well as Sevin 5% (we used it years ago but not the government says no - no) ... I do spray the Chicken House with Permethrin Spray in between "flocks" ... I only have 4 at a time.

 

[WthrLady]

I cleaned the whole coop out one nice sunny day. Shop vac and broom and dust pan. And every flake from the nest boxes. I bought concentrated permethrin and mixed it up for the premise dose and soaked to dripping every crack and crevice, i mean DRIPPING, including nest boxes.

I mixed up another batch at chicken concentration and put it in a basin. Every single bird went for a dunk up to their necks. Talk about mad wet hens.

Then off they went to preen in the sunshine while their coop dried.

Then fresh flooring and fresh nest material

Then 7 days later, I went it with the premise dose and sprayed again and cleaned out nest boxes.

I mixed up a dose of chicken level spray and set the pump sprayer to stun (strong stream) then each girl got a shot under her wings and on their butts.

(Darn wild turkeys taking baths in the outside bath spot)

We have had feather problems all summer, now the naked girls are getting feathers back and aren't preening as much.

Phew. Next warm day, I'll shoot them again for good measure.

I added permethrin dust to their flooring, their nest boxes, and into their dust bath area.

 

[Hughes Wildlife Farm]

So I'm definatly prepared with the permethrin. As a duster for the girls to kill living bugs on them at .25 permethrin.. I found a drench for spraying the coop at 1.00 permethrin. Do we know at what level of permethrin is too much or unsafe?
Obviously .25% is safe as I used it before.. But is 1.00% going to harm the chickens?
Some of the suggested items I see have up to .50% permethrin

 

[Soy Milano]

It depends on the mites. You need to identify the species first in order to get rid of them - http://www.poultrydvm.com/featured-infographic/identifying-common-ectoparasites-of-backyard-poultry

 

[aart]

Here's a good post on how to tell which mites you have and how to treat:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-chicken-has-mites-now-what.1273674/page-2#post-20483008

Agrees DE is worthless.
Permethrin spray and/or dust is the way to go.
If you have roost mites the spray will penetrate all the cracks and crevices in the coop.