Mites - PLEASE help!!!!! Can I use a bug bomb in the coop to get rid of them??

[RobinFarmGirl]

Hello Everyone,

I didn't see an existing post on this...

Two problems - (1) MITES (2) LICE

I have found that there are the tiny mites in my chicken coop. I would like to know if I can use a bug bomb in my chicken coop to kill the mites. For some time now, I have been using DE dust in their nest boxes and on the hay in the coop where they like to lay around and dust. To no avail it appears, the mites are still there and I'm finding now that when I reach in the coop and adjust their ramp, I get mites on me so it is getting BAD.

I also saw lice on one of my chickens today (I have 15 of them); dipping all 15 of them will not be an easy task. Does anyone have an easier remedy to get rid of the lice?

Thank you all for any suggestions and knowledge!
Robin

 

[Pyxis]

I wouldn't use the bug bomb. What you need to do is go to Tractor Supply or another farm/feed/garden store and pick up some Sevin 5% Dust. It's in a red container. Dust the birds with it, either by putting some in old nylons and using the nylons as a powder puff all over their body, or by filling a small bag with Sevin, putting the bird in leaving just its head out, and gently shaking the bag so the dust goes all around the bird. I like the nylon method.

Then, clean out the coop. Clean it well. Use a gentle soap and water. Dust everything with the Sevin (the walls, floor, roosts, literally everything), put bedding in and mix the bedding with Sevin. Wait a week, and do it all over to kill any that might have hatched in the meantime, since Sevin does not kill eggs, just adults.

 

[boundtogoboogie]

I actually have a help for this. Nutrena makes a feed called feather fixer. It changes the ph in the manure and prevents the insects from developing. Got this from a nutritionist with a degree in livestock nutrition

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Think you, I read and re-read the Nutrena web sight a total of 5 times

I would be very interested in the experience of other poultry keepers with the effectiveness of Feather Fixer With Mite-Fighter Technology since the most common and destructive poultry mite, the common chicken mite swarms after dark from the cracks and crannies of the coop and roost poles in order to suck the blood from your fowl, totally bypassing the vent in most instances. Besides, the other mites that live on your chickens more or less constantly can always use the chickens eyes as their water source if they don't like the hard water around your chicken's vent.

This web sight is a good resource to begin to understand the various species of mites.

http://ipm.ncsu.edu/AG369/notes/poultry_mites.html

What the Nutrena web sight did not tell me speaks volumes. No mention was made about chicken lice and Nutrena was very, very, very careful that they did not make the claim that their product would in any way rid your chickens or mine of mites, lice, fowl ticks, stick tight fleas or any other external chicken parasite.

As I mentioned earlier the common chicken mite is not ever present on your chickens during daylight hours so if you look for them when the Sun is up you likely won't find a single common chicken mite. However when the Sun goes down there may be thousands on every bird, but even then they are small, the color of a chicken's skin and therefor hard to see until they are engorged with blood and then turn a bright red or crimson. This mite can live for months without a chicken or other bird to feed on, but once they find a food source look out.

 

[midwayfarms]

I use the deep litter method. 6 months ago I rescued 2 birds from an abandoned house they were in pretty rough shape. My whole coop got seriously infested. My poor chickens had holes in their feathers and bugs all over them. I got the red cans of seven dust and used the stocking method to dust my chickens. Then I dusted my whole coop, raked it in a little and then put down a new layer of litter. I did not remove any litter. within a couple of weeks all of my birds were bug free and also my coop. They are still bug free I check them constantly as I am now paranoid of them getting infected again, plus I do quite a bit of trading at my local auction and don't want to take or receive any bugs.

 

[rockranchchickens]

Sevin, or Carbaryl, is a PAN Bad Actor. It is acutely toxic, causes abornormalities in fetal development, is carcinogenic, and probably is an endocrine disruptor. It can cause a lung disease very similar to black lung that kills coal miners.

Being an organophosphate, it is also persistent in the environment. So it passes through many animals and fish before it finally breaks down enough to no longer be dangerous. It causes problems for every one of them.

I dust my chickens with permethrin once a month. and I have started white washing the hen house. I do not think I will have to white wash more than once a year.

I built my coop entirely out of cedar with treated lumber for the ground contact parts. The cedar kept the mites population low for about 10 years. In the 7 years since, I have had to treat the house.

This spring was a very bad one for mites--we had a much milder than normal winter, so I am thinking more of the little buggers survived the winter. I have purchased some Nylar, insect growth regulator to spray on the grass where the chickens hang out. j

My chickens also go under part of my house and into the loafing shed for the alpacas. So I need to white wash those structures. I used a puffer to apply Deltamethrin in the dirt under the part of my house where the chickens like to hang out. I also used it on the floor of the alpaca barn. Deltamethrin is a waterproof, longer-lasting Permethrin-type chemical.

I plan to white wash the alpaca barn and wood siding under the house where the chickens hang out.

I also have a deep litter coop, which seems to keep mite populations down a bit.

Rather than Sevin for a precautionary coop treatment, I would use Suspend brand insecticide from Bayer. It forms a waterproof layer of deltamethrin on surfaces that is resistant to rain and kills bugs for months. It is approved for use in food preparation areas. Deltamethrin is considered to be one of the pesticides of leas concern by the Pesticide Action Network. You can look pesiticides up on their site by name.

The pesticde revolution post WWII led to the breast cancer epidemic. I would not take use of organophosphates, like Sevin, lightly. US pesticide regulations are much looser than the rest of the world. As a result, we have much higher occupational cancer rate. I say this as encouragement to everyone to at least follow the US regulations.

Unless you are a PhD or MD well versed in toxicology, you really cannot assess the risks of off label use. Think of people who know very little about an area in which you are an expert. Would you really follow those people's advice rather than your own deep knowledge of the science?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Why

....How is it that these tiny chickens can handle all of this rough stuff on their bodies? I've noticed it's impossible that some won't get into their mouths/systems. Why doesn't it kill them, too?

For the same reason that chickens and other birds love to eat the organic natural poison Strychnine but in sufficient amounts it will kill you or me deader than 4:00.

Meaning that people are not chickens, and that chickens are not people, and never the twain shall meet.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Don't forget that if you use Sevin that you're supposed to destroy your eggs for a period of time.

If you use Permethrin there is no egg withdrawal period.

Both Sevin and Permethrin kill mites like gang busters. Why not use the dust on the body and the Permethrin spray on the coop then switch products every time you retreat. This will make it much harder for your chicken parasites to develop resistances to these products.

More and more people report DE is useless in preventing and curing chicken mite and chicken lice infestations.

 

[RobinFarmGirl]

Thank you all for the suggestions!

When the chickens were molting, I used the Nutrena Feather Fixer so I'm familiar with it. Will it help when the insects are already here and multiplying??

I've heard that Seven is pretty strong for the birds (their health) but it being just 5% shouldn't be that bad, correct?

I like the idea of using both Seven & Permethrin. Will this also kill the lice?

 

[RobinFarmGirl]

Oh, and if I use Seven dust on the chickens, what is the time period for NOT using the eggs?

Does Permethrin come in spray form only? If it comes in dust form too, can I use that to dust the chickens as well?