MITES!

[nestleaver1]

How did you get on with the infestation?
I recently found that an infestation I thought was under control was really not... I tried dabbing a little white spirit into a coop crevice to see whether it would drive out any mites and it drove out a zillion of them. I just kept wiping the coop surface with a spirit-soaked rag and they kept on coming out. I used a paint-stripping heat gun to blast all the crevices I had seen them emerge from after the white spirit had dried off and ended up with piles of dead mites I had to sweep out of the coop!!! Now I am wiping down the inside daily with the spirity rag; it darkens the wood so you can see the nasty little hatchlings and then wipe them away. I am sure contact with white spirit will kill mites and babies but the eggs appear bomb-proof as they are still hatching each day and making more little white babies. I plan to keep wiping it down every day until no more babies appear. I think the hot weather makes the mites more likely to mobilise but the white spirit trick will make it clear what you are up against esp if you do it in the heat of the day. Plus it evaporates away quickly and won't select for resistant mites. The heat gun is pretty final too. Use it on low speed, top temp and at a distance of about 10 cm.
The chickens had been miming "THERE ARE MITES IN THE COOP!!!" every night but I had ignored them. They shook their heads in the disgusted manner repeatedly and craned their necks around to look at the ceiling and walls. Pretty clear.
Hope your mites are already gone but if not, hope this helps!
Cheers, Kate

 

[BLT79]

Hi, I'm in the Uk had a bad infestation last year, none this year, here is what I do, place Diatom in the bedding area, smear vicks vaporub, I know sounds strange! around the perch ends, the mites will not cross this so the birds can roost in peace, and something new this year is spraying cracks and crevices with pet flea spray called Acclaim, it's good stuff! and is residual so will keep acting, so far this year I have had no issues touch wood! the mites you are seeing are more than likely the same species just at different levels of maturity and depending on when they last had a feed they can look grey to black, the ones in your sisters bedroom will disappear if there is no food source, is their chickens in her room? do you have a shed or out building they can go into? either that or place them in the bath in their enclosure if it fits as then you can clean up easier, they do not like living on us, I would not bother burning her stuff it may work but seems a bit drastic! just spray acclaim everywhere

good luck!

is diatom the same as DE here in the states? I want to prevent mites before they happen. thanks

 

[remisophy]

I gave my hen in dawn dish soap there were alot of tiny black specks in the bottom of the tub

 

[nestleaver1]

I found some stuff in B&Q (British Home Depot) and this seems to have helped. Ronseal Wood Preserver is meant to be for treating woodworm but it is basically permethrin in a white spirit base. The 5litre can was reduced from £30 to £10 so thought I'd try it. Have been painting it into the cracks every few weeks this summer and it certainly seems to have kept them under control if not completely eradicated. I also decided to blast out the crevices with a hose when it was warm enough to dry. Just normal hose on jet and this cleared out a lot of old, dead mitiness that they could hide in. I filled some of the bigger holes with silicon just to limit the volume of space for the blighters to hide in.
I guess the Wood Preserver will act as residual to kill mites and the white spirit will kill them anyway so double hit should stop resistant ones surviving?
Should also make the wooden coop last longer so I have time to save up for a plastic one!
Hope this is useful to people battling the mite...
KT