Our property has never had chickens on it.
We built a brand new chicken ark.
Chicks were hatched in a neighbor's basement, spent 9 days outside in her coop (did have chickens previously, but was scrubbed and re-stained before my chicks went in).
They are now 6.5 weeks old. Physical appearance of feathers is fine.
Ark is full of pine shavings and food-grade DE.
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I read on one link on this site about someone questioning type of trees near the coop. Our ark is near 70' cedar trees. At this point I do not suspect red mite, however....I have noticed 1 or 2 very tiny (1mm), red crawlers. I see this odd 1-2 critters maybe every 2-3 days. I have not seen any inside the actual ark, but when I lift and prop up the one side which opens for cleaning.....I slide a board along the open side so the girls don't flap out. This board leans alongside a cedar tree when not in use, and it is on this board that I have seen them. A friend suggested baby spiders?
I don't know exactly what a red mite looks like and cannot find an image online. These guys I see are fully red in colour (body and legs)....when squished they leave a blood red mark.
Should I be doing a crazy scrub and dust fest?
I have been completely changing the pine shavings twice a week. This cleaning also involves using the Shop-Vac....and I've had DE in the ark with each cleaning.
I did have a small earwig baby nest of about 60 baby earwigs, which was thoroughly vacuumed.
Could the earwigs be coming from the wood itself which was used to build the ark? We used all pine.
Do I have red mite?
Is there something more I can do to prevent another earwig nest? They earwig area had small, black granules like a pepper mill would leave in amongst the babies.
We built a brand new chicken ark.
Chicks were hatched in a neighbor's basement, spent 9 days outside in her coop (did have chickens previously, but was scrubbed and re-stained before my chicks went in).
They are now 6.5 weeks old. Physical appearance of feathers is fine.
Ark is full of pine shavings and food-grade DE.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I read on one link on this site about someone questioning type of trees near the coop. Our ark is near 70' cedar trees. At this point I do not suspect red mite, however....I have noticed 1 or 2 very tiny (1mm), red crawlers. I see this odd 1-2 critters maybe every 2-3 days. I have not seen any inside the actual ark, but when I lift and prop up the one side which opens for cleaning.....I slide a board along the open side so the girls don't flap out. This board leans alongside a cedar tree when not in use, and it is on this board that I have seen them. A friend suggested baby spiders?
I don't know exactly what a red mite looks like and cannot find an image online. These guys I see are fully red in colour (body and legs)....when squished they leave a blood red mark.
Should I be doing a crazy scrub and dust fest?
I have been completely changing the pine shavings twice a week. This cleaning also involves using the Shop-Vac....and I've had DE in the ark with each cleaning.
I did have a small earwig baby nest of about 60 baby earwigs, which was thoroughly vacuumed.
Could the earwigs be coming from the wood itself which was used to build the ark? We used all pine.
Do I have red mite?
Is there something more I can do to prevent another earwig nest? They earwig area had small, black granules like a pepper mill would leave in amongst the babies.
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