Red mite fight

[farangobokbok]

Unfortunately my 3 hens have recently had a red mite infestation in their homemade wooden coop. I couldn't believe my eyes - they were EVERYWHERE!! My girls were all looking sorry for themselves, their combs went pale, they stopped laying for a couple of weeks and lost feathers.

In a panic I went out and bought Total Mite KIll spray and various other products that I though would solve the problem. My advice to everyone is that these products don't work. I have since creosoted the coop (substitute creosote) - just in the cracks because I didn't want to saturate the entire coop at once. I just creosoted a bit at a time because I don't have another coop to move the hens into and didn't want them breathing in all the fumes, it's summer here at the moment so I've left the coop door open at night (still within a safe enclosed run) so as to let the coop air. MITES HATE CREOSOTE. There is now virtually no sign of mites (I couldn't even go near the coop before without the little buggers climbing all over me and having to jump straight into a shower before settling down in the human house). It took about an hour a night for two weeks of cleaning out then creosoting and making sure all the feeders and drinkers are clean but it's all been worth it.

As far as diet is concerned, I have carried on feeding layers pellets but supplemented their diet with some salmon and anchovies (only because there was spare) and cider vinegar in their water.

I dusted each chookie with mite powder but I'm not sure how much this actually helped but repeated it anyway every couple of days and sprinkled it in their dust bathing area for good measure. I only had this because someone gave it to me.

All appears to be well again, girls all look well, laying again (no trace of fish or creosote taste in the eggs) and all I had to do was use the creosote lying around in the shed.

I intend on treating the coop again a few times before winter just to make sure all mite ages are gone.

Finally, Good luck to anyone who has had this problem, it's a nightmare going out to the coop at night with a torch and seeing these little beasties in every nook and cranny.

Audrey

 

[GitaBooks]

UGH!!!!

We have some mites, but we've never really had to treat our chickens for it, as they have such a huge barn full of dust they can dust bathe just about anywhere. However, my UGH!!! is about fleas. We had fleas like you had mites, and nothing was working! It was awful! The house was crawling with them! Anywhere with carpet, they would be jumping onto your legs and biting you. Soon our dogs were chewing at any little black speck they thought was a flea (they were so paranoid), we were constantly killing fleas that were jumping onto us, I combed my ferrets with a flea comb and it would turn black! We had a mite problem at the same time. We flea bombed and a white surface was nearly black with dead mites. In our house!
We finally found a medication that worked on the dogs. The fleas would then jump onto the dogs and get poisoned. We haven't had flea problems since.

So glad that is over!

 

[farangobokbok]

I'm feeling itchy just thinking about those fleas. Urgh to them too!! glad you got it sorted. It does take a bit of work but it's got to be done. I have some friends that there thinking about keeping chickens but they have now said there is no way because they couldn't cope with an infestation of any kind. They are obviously not true animal lovers and are probably best off not having them anyway. The internet is just brilliant for answering all your chicken related questions. Plan on getting two whippets at the end of this year but that will be a whole new forum I will need to join.
Thanks for your reply.
Audrey