After battling with red mite in my coop for over a year I've decided to buy a plastic coop. I've been spraying the old coop every month but the mites always return .
My worry is that the mites will be on the chickens and be transferred into the new coop . How do I rid chickens of mites successfully?
I'm grateful for any advice .
Claire
Kent UK
Firstly, a plastic coop will not stop an infestation of red mite. What it will do is making eradicating the pest a lot easier. As Perris has mentioned in this thread, red mite don't live on the bird, they live in the coop and feed on the birds at night while they are roosting. One does find red mites on chickens in daylight hours, late feeders who haven't got home before daylight perhaps.
So, your concern about your chickens carrying red mite to the new coop is valid.
Burn the old wooden coop!
Doubtless you will get various chemical option suggestions for ridding the chickens of mites, most of these options involve highly toxic chemicals or so called natural remedies like DE which won't work.
While Ivermectin will kill red mite it relies on the mite biting and feeding off the chicken. One doesn't want this. The existence of red mite in a coop isn't really a problem, it's the fact they bite and feed off the chicken that's the problem. Red mites lay eggs and these hatch faster than than the feeding mites get killed by the Ivermectin It's easy to find oneself locked in a loop of having to continually does the chicken just to combat the feeding mites while the eggs continue to hatch and increase the population. The ideal solution is not to have the mites feeding off the chicken and equally important, not lay more eggs.
Permethrin will kill the mites. It's very effective but it's also very toxic and with a major infestation very expensive. A number of other chemicals will do much the same with similar toxicity problems. What they won't do is kill the eggs.
I've found a blow torch the most effective method to deal with any coop living pest. Obviously it can't be used on the chicken. There are small cooks blow torches available on the internet and kitchen shops and these work very well.
I have recycled plastic chicken coops and provided one is quick and careful a blow torch can be used. I had an infestation of red mite last year in such a recycled plastic coop and use a kitchen blow torch to rid the coop of mites. An added advantage is the blow torch will kill the eggs. Nothing survives a 400 degrees centigrade flame which is what the better torches give at the blue tip of the flame.
