RED MITES - had to condemn coop... questions, please help!!

[1livelychick]

Quote:
WOW. Thank you for the info. I feel badly, I thought it was every two weeks. Although, i have never seen the pile of blood filled mites...I have seen the creepy crawley tan little bugs on my girls. The permeterin spay and dust has helped. I'm interested in the Nylar. Can it be used in conjunction with the permitherin or do you cycle it out between permetherin? Or just exclude the permetherin all together?

mix them together.

Thanks! Good luck op I hope your problem gets resolved quickly and you find some peace and rest. God Bless!

 

[technodoll]

Phase 1 completed... this warfare is exhausting.

The smallest coop has been emptied out of bedding and everything I could unscrew, then drenched in a permethrin concentrate mix (using a garden mister), there are a hundred nooks and crannies and everything is made of wood but I can only do my best.

Found the nest under the roosting planks after I unscrewed the brackets - they were between the wood and the metal.

Big fat red suckers.

The spray killed them dead in less than a minute.

Washed the planks with water and soap, scrubbed the brackets, let dry, oiled the wood thoroughly with lemon oil and re-assembled everything.

Added new bedding and will repeat the whole process in 6 days.

Birds were treated with Ivermectin last night, although I don't think the mites are dying after feeding on them

The coop is alot emptier now, less wood and hiding spots - and at least the infestation had only begun there, from what I could see.

Tomorrow I have to do the same to another coop, this afternoon I took out the pallet where the birds sleep , sprayed with the chemicals, and 15 minutes later the mites crawled out from between the cracks - so I tossed the whole thing in the garbage pile. Now I know all my coops are infested. I will get sealed planks for them to sleep on, slather with lemon oil and pray it helps. All birds in there got ivermectin a couple of days ago but as I have seen, the mites are still feeding and not dying(?)

There is still the condemned coop that we will not be using anymore, it contains the motherload of mites - tomorrow my husband will go in there and spray as much as he can, and repeat for a couple of days in the hopes of killing as many as possible. Otherwise the problem just remains and when we bulldoze it down next year they will explode out of there.

And then there is the barn... I'm pretty sure they're in there too.

I'm so exhausted and it's only started.

I don't know if I can keep up with chicken ownership. It's been more trouble, pain, work, cost and heartache than anything else the past few months

 

[1livelychick]

I'm feel badly that you are going through this.

It sounds like you are getting a hold on the situation, though. I'm so paranoid after your experience I went out and redusted the gang tonight. They were not very happy with me!

Lemon oil? What does that do? I've learned through your unfortunate situation. Wishing you all the best!

 

[Pele]

Don't give up, it's well worth it!

I have personally found that with chickens, an ounce of prevention is worth 1,000 lbs of cure. Once you've reached stable ground again in your bug war, I would definitely look into preventatives so you never ever have to do all this horrible work again.

When I built my coop, I actually did caulk it with weatherproof caulk, just like you would with a house. All the nooks and crannies are filled and sealed. That helps insulate the coop AND keep the bugs out. I also coated all the wood with oil-based paint primer. It was hard to find, but after much looking at Home Depot, they have like 1 can of it hiding among all the other primers. It's a pain in the butt to work with, but you can't beat oil-sealing all your wood (both to preserve it from weather, and to seal it from bugs). I did this inside-out on the coop. It only came in white, and I felt stupid painting the inside of the coop white, but what can you do.

I also put down tile on the floor of the coop to futher seal off the floor, and to create the perfect surface to put down sand. I LOVE it, it's SO easy to clean, and I heavily mix DE and Sevin into the sand. This is a two-fold bonus, because the chickens love to dustbathe in the sand, and dust themselves in the process! I do put down straw as well, but make sure to change it often. The sand and straw also dessicate the birds' droppings, making it less attractive to flies. I don't think I've seen a single fly in there.

I did have a brief problem with Earwigs back when I was only using DE, but since introducing Sevin, they too have gone.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, and I know even I thought the laminate tile was overkill, but it is completely worth it (plus I was surprised at how cheap it was).

 

[technodoll]

Someday I hope to build my dream coop from the ground up and not have to deal with old farm buildings and barns...

And then you can bet it will be BUGPROOF as I am now a walking encyclopedia of bug warfare

I just emptied out and stripped down the 2nd coop and drenched every square inch with permethrin - I didn't see a single mite crawl out of the woodwork or cracks is this a good sign?

There were some on the old pallet I took out of there and test-squirted yesterday, so hopefully the infestation was contained in that piece of wood that's now gone...

I have to let the coop dry out before building new roosts, I got melamine planks from the hardware store this morning and will seal the edges with paint and vaseline after that. All the brand-new wood going into the coop for support structures will be painted first to seal any cracks. The nestbox structure they have is all aluminum, with only the roosting planks made of wood - will take those off, treat with permethrin, paint and put back on.

The flock is soooo unhappy, they are locked out of their coop since lunchtime and I'm getting an earful

Good news: this morning I checked the coop I worked on yesterday, unscrewed the brackets from the roosting plank because that's where the nests were yesterday and it's all clean - no bugs in sight. So that possibly means I got all the adults? Crossing fingers... will check every morning and re-treat again in 5 days, to be sure.

Did I mention all of this in sweltering heat 30+C (over 96F) and high humidity?

Yeah, worst summer ever!

 

[ChooksChick]

I used Advantage on my birds, one by one, when we had mites and lice hit at the same time.

I put Sevin on the floor of all the nests, sprinkled the roost, and put a tray of it in front of the pop-door for them to walk through each night, so they dust the roost themselves. I picked them all up and gave them each 2 drops of Advantage, which works 4-6 weeks, so as to stop the cycle of life. Eggs might hatch, but they'll be the last generation.

Hope you get them all.

 

[melissahj]

Have you tried using diatomaceous earth...at least in the new coop and on the chickens? You may not be able to save the old coop but at least if there has been some transfer to the new coop you can stop the infestation before it gets out of hand.

All you have to do is this...

Purchase some food grade diatomaceous earth (powdered granulation works best for this purpose)
Sprinkle the DE throughout the coop- in the cracks and crevices, anywhere the mites may be
For the chickens you can either sprinkle the DE on them or simply spread some out where they usually dust themselves. They will actually like to dust in the diatomaceous earth and by doing so it will kill any mites that they may have on them.

The best part is this product is 100% natural and safe to use. In fact, you can even sprinkle some DE in to your chicken feed. By ingesting the DE it will also kill any internal parasites that they may have!

Good luck!

 

[MARANMAN2011]

We use both DE and sevin they work good.

 

[technodoll]

If anyone could point me to a place where I can buy food-grade DE here in Quebec (canada), I'd be most grateful...

I made a dozen calls the past few days to feed stores, co-ops, garden centers, etc - nobody has even heard of it.

Online I can get 2 lbs for $30 with shipping and that's just ridiculous :-(

We don't have Sevin dust available here, either - used to be able to get a product called Dri-Kill but it's been pulled off the shelves and replaced with NOTHING.

I spent 8 straight hours today on red mite warfare.

8 hours yesterday.

About $250 so far in chemicals, supplies and vet products.

I'm mentally, physically and financially exhausted - all this in sweltering heat.

Taking a break tomorrow, we're getting the hottest day of the year so far (something like 105F with humidity).

I hate bugs.

 

[welasharon]

Can someone send you some seven...or is that not allowed from the states to you?
sharon