Mites!

[Emmies Chicks]

3 week old chicks have mites. What is best to treat them with and what is best way to treat/clean their coop/brooder with? They stay in a galvanized water trough on pine shavings during the cooler hours of the morning and then I turn them out in a 10x10 pen on grass until evening.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Dust them with a pyrethrin based poultry dust. Clean out the brooder and put some dust under the bedding. Dust the chicks again in 7-10 days.

 

[Emmies Chicks]

Pyretherin or permetherin? They are of the same derivitive but everything I've read says specifically permetherin for chickens. I have cats and permetherin is very toxic to cats but pyretherin is not, however permetherin is what is recommended for chickens. Any experience with one or the other?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I believe you are right, my dust contains permetherin. I will have to change what I say.

Edited to add apparently permetherin is a man made synthetic, and pyrethrin is obtained from marigolds and is natural, that's the difference.

 

[lazy gardener]

FYI: Pyrethrin is synthetically made by industrial methods, but it also naturally occurs in chrysanthemum flowers, thus is often considered an organic insecticide, or at least when it is not combined with piperonyl butoxide or other synthetic adjuvants.