Red mite infestation

[Lillith37]

Hello collective wisdom of the BYC community! I need your guidance.

Today I re-homed a group of chicks to a lovely gentleman who lives on a 5 acre property half an hour from me. He has a beautiful, minimalist house and spectacular gardens.

Turns out he has a terrible infestation of - what I suspect is - red mites in his chicken coop.

He has two coops side by side. One has approximately 15 chickens, the other has a peacock and two pea hens. The coops are simple in layout and cover the necessary basics. Wooden structures with wire mesh. Straw and sand. Proper ventilation. The birds free range during the day.

We went into the chicken coop and mites immediately crawled all over my feet and my hand that I put on the roost. When we went out, mites were all over the front of our shirts. He had no idea. His wife usually cares for the animals but she has been interstate supporting family. We are experiencing very hot humid weather. It seems as a result the mite population has exploded, because they have not had this issue previously.

This guy seemed so caring and engaging, the environment was so well cared for, the coops so well set up... that I info-dumped him everything I could about mites, left him with the chicks, came home and had a panic attack. I put all the clothes I was wearing on a hot wash, sprayed the carrier and my shoes with permethrin and showered. We've since been in discussion about the best way to deal with this problem. I suggested cleaning out all the bedding from the coop, burning it, spraying the structures with liquid permethrin, put new bedding in, then treat every bird with rotenone & sulfur powder (Pestene, the go-to product here in Australia) and repeating every seven days until the situation is under control. I repeatedly offered my help because I felt so guilty about consigning my broody's precious chicks to that fate. To his credit, he immediately powdered the birds, acquired the permethrin concentrate and has stayed in contact with me all day.

He has now offered me a job. Helping with the animals (he also has bees and goats -- I told him the mite treatment will be toxic to bees, but the bees don't go in the coops) as well as yard/house maintenance. This is a great opportunity for me on several levels.

My question -- is my "treatment plan" adequate? Is there anything else I should do/consider? What about the peacock and peahens? I've never worked with them before. I don't know the first thing about them. I dealt with a very mild case of lice in my flock of hens once upon a time. I have an ongoing practice to address/prevent SLM but I've never had to deal with any kind of northern fowl or red mites before.

Best case scenario they are wood mites but I examined one I brought home with me and cross-referenced it to pictures and it looked most like an unfed red mite or red mite nymph.

@azygous @Eggcessive @Wyorp Rock @Shadrach @dawg53 @BDutch @rosemarythyme you have all helped me in the past and I am so grateful. If you have any suggestions, advice or guidance I would really appreciate your experience and expertise or if you know anyone to tag who may be able to help. Thank you so much.

 

[rosemarythyme]

That sounds like a plan. For the time being, when you go over there to help, if possible I'd highly suggest you leave a set of discardable/easy to wash clothing (pants, shirt, gloves, boots - and tuck everything in when you're wearing it to minimize the skin exposure) until the problem is taken care of - no reason to track it back to your own set up or home.

Hopefully the initial treatment and one round of re-treatment will get it under control, and then he can just use sulfur strictly around the fowl to keep things that way with hopefully a little less harm to the bees compared to the permethrin. This article has some ideas about how to set up bags of sulfur so that chickens will dust themselves with small amounts of it: https://entomologytoday.org/2016/07/18/battling-chicken-mites-with-bags-of-brimstone/

 

[Lillith37]

That sounds like a plan. For the time being, when you go over there to help, if possible I'd highly suggest you leave a set of discardable/easy to wash clothing (pants, shirt, gloves, boots - and tuck everything in when you're wearing it to minimize the skin exposure) until the problem is taken care of - no reason to track it back to your own set up or home.

Hopefully the initial treatment and one round of re-treatment will get it under control, and then he can just use sulfur strictly around the fowl to keep things that way with hopefully a little less harm to the bees compared to the permethrin. This article has some ideas about how to set up bags of sulfur so that chickens will dust themselves with small amounts of it: https://entomologytoday.org/2016/07/18/battling-chicken-mites-with-bags-of-brimstone/

Thank you so much. This is great advice.

The rotenone in the Pestene powder is toxic to bees when combined with pyrethroids (i.e. the permethrin spray). So your advice to hang the bags post-permethrin treatment should work to protect the bees as soon as the permethrin has dispersed from the environment. I have a heap of spare fabric, linen and cotton etc, that might be able to be repurposed to this end.

I spray the same permethrin product in my coop and I have bees in my garden and all over the grass in the yard in the clover flowers. So if the bees don't go in the coop hopefully it will be okay but as a long term preventative solution the sulfur bags are excellent.

Thanks so much again for suggesting the spare pair of clothes and tucking everything in. I had sort of thought of that but it hadn't crystallised yet. I wonder if I can spray permethrin in my car

Thank you again, so much!

 

[rosemarythyme]

Thanks so much again for suggesting the spare pair of clothes and tucking everything in. I had sort of thought of that but it hadn't crystallised yet. I wonder if I can spray permethrin in my car

Yeah I did the spare clothing thing while I was treating for mites and I think that really helped reduce the number being brought into the house.

You probably can treat the car interior if necessary. I have some permethrin that's in an aerosol can for spraying furniture and the like, so while I'd suggest testing it on upholstery before blasting the car with it, it should be ok to use.

Good news is even if you have a few mites in the car or the house, they don't live long without fowl to feed on, so they should die on their own in a couple of weeks.

 

[Lillith37]

You probably can treat the car interior if necessary. I have some permethrin that's in an aerosol can for spraying furniture and the like, so while I'd suggest testing it on upholstery before blasting the car with it, it should be ok to use.

Good news is even if you have a few mites in the car or the house, they don't live long without fowl to feed on, so they should die on their own in a couple of weeks.

I just have the permethrin concentrate in a spray bottle. I'll patch test it and see what happens. My car is pretty old so it's not going to be the end of the world. The health and wellbeing of everyone is more important.

I've been reading about how red mites can go for 34 weeks without a feed! They are the bed bugs of the bird world. I'm both terrified and excited at the challenge.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I've been reading about how red mites can go for 34 weeks without a feed! They are the bed bugs of the bird world. I'm both terrified and excited at the challenge.

Oh my brain said northern fowl mites. Yes red roost mites live longer without feeding.

 

[Lillith37]

Oh my brain said northern fowl mites. Yes red roost mites live longer without feeding.

I'm not an expert so I'm can't be sure exactly what I'm dealing with but the signs do point to red roost mites. It's war! I've battled rats and tapeworm already... hopefully I'm up for the task.

 

[Lillith37]

@KsKingBee and @casportpony I found another thread where you two are talking about Ivermectin treatment for peafowl lice. Unfortunately my brain implodes when trying to do math.

I don't know if these peafowl have lice (and/or mites) but I'm going to have to check them over and figure it out.

I have an Ivermectin pour-on product which is 1000µg/ml Ivermectin.

Can you please advise on dosage and the correct way to do a general health check for peafowl? And specifically how to check for exoparasites as that's what we we know we are dealing with next door.

Thanks in advance!

 

[BDutch]

That sounds like a plan. For the time being, when you go over there to help, if possible I'd highly suggest you leave a set of discardable/easy to wash clothing (pants, shirt, gloves, boots - and tuck everything in when you're wearing it to minimize the skin exposure) until the problem is taken care of - no reason to track it back to your own set up or home.

Hopefully the initial treatment and one round of re-treatment will get it under control, and then he can just use sulfur strictly around the fowl to keep things that way with hopefully a little less harm to the bees compared to the permethrin. This article has some ideas about how to set up bags of sulfur so that chickens will dust themselves with small amounts of it: https://entomologytoday.org/2016/07/18/battling-chicken-mites-with-bags-of-brimstone/

The link if going to an article to tackle northern fowl mites. The red mites are nasty as well but a bit less difficult.

I never had such a bad infestation and don’t like the use of poisons so Im probably not the best help in this situation.

What I did/recommend , to avoid the use of much poisons:
Start with a more thorough cleaning.
Steam or surface burn. Or at least clean with soap.
Take out the roosts to clean the joints too.
Fill all cracks with a ‘paint’ made from DE,
Paint the roosts and the surface inside with DE too.
Use rolls of corrugated paper to attach to the roosts or wrap corrugated cardboard around the roosts. Check daily on mites and kill the (tiny) mites in the microwave.
Red mites don’t endure heat!
Repeat this after 7-9 days .
I also used two types of herbal additives a liquid in their water and a powder in the feed. Here the trademark is Finecto+.

If you do this in combination with permethrin and sulfur you should eliminate all mites. I used permethrin only once on a broody , at the roost ends and on the deepest cracks.

Beware they don’t come back. Keep monitoring with rolls of corrugated paper and put them in the microwave for 15 sec after checking. I had tiny mites for a whole month after treating. But they disappeared without much permethrin, but with the paper rolls, DE (in the sandbath too) , sand instead of bedding and herbal additives.

Any questions on the above ? Don't hesitate.

 

[Lillith37]

The link if going to an article to tackle northern fowl mites. The red mites are nasty as well but a bit less difficult.

I never had such a bad infestation and don’t like the use of poisons so Im probably not the best help in this situation.

What I did/recommend , to avoid the use of much poisons:
Start with a more thorough cleaning.
Steam or surface burn. Or at least clean with soap.
Take out the roosts to clean the joints too.
Fill all cracks with a ‘paint’ made from DE,
Paint the roosts and the surface inside with DE too.
Use rolls of corrugated paper to attach to the roosts or wrap corrugated cardboard around the roosts. Check daily on mites and kill the (tiny) mites in the microwave.
Red mites don’t endure heat!
Repeat this after 7-9 days .
I also used two types of herbal additives a liquid in their water and a powder in the feed. Here the trademark is Finecto+.

If you do this in combination with permethrin and sulfur you should eliminate all mites. I used permethrin only once on a broody , at te roost ends and on the deepest cracks.

Beware they don’t come back. Keep monitoring with rolls of corrugated paper and put them in the microwave for 15 sec after checking. I had tiny mites for a whole month after treating. But they disappeared without much permethrin, but with the paper rolls, DE (in the sandbath too) , sand instead of bedding and herbal additives.

Thank you so much. I'm going to have to figure out to what extent the roosts and boxes are able to be disassembled. I don't think I'm going to be able to steam or surface burn, but I can scrub with hot soapy water. The owners have a fire pit/burning off area where all the flammable bedding will go to be destroyed.

I can acquire DE but not immediately. Same with feed/water additives. I'm going to have to have some kind of conversation with the owners about ongoing management and what products in which they may be prepared to invest. We have immediate access to the chemicals so I can spread the Pestene Rotenone/Sulfur powder underneath fresh bedding.

I won't be able to check the coops daily unfortunately but I can potentially work with the corrugated paper idea, which is genius!