Northern Red Mite Help Needed

[Bear and Dart]

Hello thank you for reading this in advance,

I first discovered mites in my coop ( which i have never dealt with until now ) in September when one of my hens went broody. At first I tried all the natural methods I could think of but nothing seemed to work. They got really bad in November and I believe part of the reason why I lost one of my silkies was due to the nasty little things, that was a complete infestation nightmare. So I tried permethrin dust next, and have been using it until now and it hasn't done much, even after freaking out and putting the stuff everywhere. I then tried ivermectin on my roosters, old hen, and broody silkies and it definitely helped but isn't doing the job well enough. I would love to spray the coop with diluted permethrin or possibly elector-psp but it's below freezing temps here and will be for awhile , and I do not have an additional coop at the moment to house my 30 birds in. I am wondering if anyone has any ideas as to how I can solve my problem, and if/when I burn the bedding, if I should also burn their roosts and nesting boxes and get new ones ( plastic shed/coop ).

- Thank you so much, this has been such a headache over the past fall/winter

 

[Bear and Dart]

To clarify the coop is a plastic rubbermaid shed, the roosts and nesting boxes were built out of wood. There is also a super simple wooden frame for stability.

 

[theoldchick]

https://the-chicken-chick.com/poultry-lice-and-mites-identification/

 

[HollyWoozle]

Sorry for your trouble, mites are a pain in the backside. You say the permethrin dust is no longer working and permethrin is my 'go to' for mites generally - how often do you clean out your coop? It is possible that the dust is just sitting on top of old beddings, droppings etc and the mites still have places to hide?

Are you treating your laying hens with anything as well? In my experience you will need to treat the coop and all the chickens to be effective generally. But of course not every product is safe to go straight on the chickens so you need to be sure of the products you are using.

One thing that really helps us is to put vaseline at the end of the wood perches/roosts and covering any crack, crevice, notch, screw etc. on them that mites could hide. Mites in hiding get trapped and suffocated and others don't successfully make it over the sticky ends. Good luck!

 

[Eggcessive]

Mites reproduce every 5-7 days, so it helps to treat 2-3 times at 7 day intervals with the permethrin dust or spray. If using ivermectin 5 mg per ml pour on, the dosage needs to be 1 ml for every 2 pounds of weight at 10-14 day intervals twice, and placed on skin on the back of the neck over the spine. But the coop bedding needs to be removed far away or burned, coop, nest boxes and roosts all need cleaning, and new bedding replaced. All of this is difficult in cold winter, but mites can cause anemia and death.

 

[Bear and Dart]

Sorry I never responded to anyone on this thread, life got really busy, but i stayed persistent with treatment and the now that the ground is not frozen and they are able to dust bathe mites are not really a huge problem at all anymore. Thank you so much for the advice though I really appreciated it!