New plastic coop has to stand in same place as old one - red mite advice, pretty please!

[RebsChooks]

After battling red mite for a month I am getting a new plastic coop today. Our old wooden one has just got too many places to harbour the red mite, and we still have them despite thorough spraying and cleaning and dusting every other day.

I know plastic coops do not stop the red mite but I am hoping the cleaning process will be easier and more complete with plastic.

My question is this. The coop stands in a walk-in run, so the new coop will just stand where the old one did. We *could* stand the new coop at the end of the garden, but as I understand it it would need to be there for 8-9 months to have a chance of the ground and walk-in run to me mite-free, and the mites I have not managed to send to oblivion could just as easily crawl across the garden anyway. And the chickens would be less safe in a coop out of the walk in run.

Any advice on making the switch on existing ground? Additional measures to try to prevent mites taking up residence in the plastic coop? The ground has been repeatedly sprayed with Smite, powdered with DE and sanitised with sanitising powder but I am sure they must still be around all the same.

Any advice gratefully received to help make the switch as clean as possible. What can I treat the new coop with initially to repel mites?

Please help. I am so tired of fighting these horrid little creatures. (Hens are very well so the numbers must now be very small.)

 

[Perris]

Hi @RebsChooks ! I sympathize; mites make chicken keeping a misery for many.
Which type plastic coop are you getting? In any case, rather than prophylactic treating it with chemicals I would dismantle the coop as much as you can for the first few cleans; you will be able to see any sign of mites, and power wash it, making an especially thorough job of any joint points where signs of infection exist. The plastic offers them fewer and less desirable places to hide, and nowhere to escape a jet wash if fully dismantled. If you treat your birds at the same time, any mites that do reinfect it or them should be dealt with quite quickly I'd have thought.

 

[RebsChooks]

I don’t have a jet wash and after all the expenses of the last month in products and the new coop, I don’t really want to spend any more on a jetwasher :-/ is it essential, do you think? I have a pump spray for Smite spraying, and a regular hose. Will this not be sufficient?

I am going to re-treat my hens with ivermectin tonight when they go in the new coop (if they will even go in it?!).

We are getting an Arkus.

 

[RebsChooks]

Had one crawling on me as I type. No idea how they get on me just from unbolting the run door, bunging in their breakfast and coming back inside. All the ones I see on me are grey though. No bites. For a while I showered after every single interaction with the coop, but I cannot keep showering six times a day!

I actually regret getting the chickens now. They are just a source of stress and worry instead of a pleasure now. :-(

 

[Perris]

Poor you! Hang in there - I think your problems will soon be over. I have no experience with an Arkus but it looks like it's held together with lynch pins on the outside, which is like mine (Green Frog), so will be really easily to take apart and not many pieces, and hardly anywhere for the blighters to hide on the inside. A pressure washer is not at all necessary; once you've switched over I expect you'll get the problem sorted quickly with this coop, and then be able to clean it with dilute vinegar and a cloth (my fortnightly routine, no mites thankfully).

 

[RebsChooks]

Ah, thank you for the encouragement and reassurance I started out all gung-ho and “the red mites are toast and I am going to throw all my energy at this” but they have worn me down!

While I have your ear... what is your cleaning regime? Do you mean you clean fortnightly with vinegar when there are no mites, and then have a different cleaning approach when you see signs of mite? Please list your weekly/fortnightly tasks. I thought I was careful but this red mite infestation has really thrown me.

 

[Perris]

I pooh pick daily, and once a fortnight or thereabouts take the back off, throw out the shavings, scrape off any stuck bits on the poop trays, wipe the interior down with dilute vinegar (hand sprayer, some water, glug of white or malt vinegar), put the trays and back door in the sun to dry (having chosen a sunny day to do this), then put it back together with clean shavings. I used to take it all apart and wash each bit (which frankly isn't much more work with lynch pins) but soon realized it was unnecessary - I've had no infestation of anything since I've had it. I splashed out for a plastic coop because mites spoiled it for my sister, who kept chickens for a decade before me. My birds free range and have picked up worms from the local pheasants, but assuming there are mites etc out there, they really don't like my plastic coop!

 

[llombardo]

Do you have a net over your enclosure?

 

[RebsChooks]

No but the wire of the run is too close to let any wild birds or predators in.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I had to look up the smite. It doesn't say what the active ingredient is, just that it contains no pesticide.

Can you get a permethrin spray?

https://www.google.com/shopping/pro...&ved=0ahUKEwj24_ixo5fdAhXHtVkKHSiaB40QgjYIzgM

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/permethrin-spray.1134783/

I have used it with great success.