Treating with Ivermectin

[tuskajones]

Ideally, when you treated your birds with the ivermectin, you shouldve dusted your coop the same day prior to the birds going inside the coop for the night. This wouldve greatly decreased the odds of your birds getting reinfested albeit the ivermectin would kill the mites. It's a matter of stopping the mites lifecycle which includes eliminating them inside the coop and nests. Retreat your birds with the ivermectin in 10 days to kill mites hatched from eggs. Dust the coop as well. Sevin dust will get them.

Hi Dawg--Yes I realized in my panic of nursing a sick bird, crappy weather, improving my hawk deterrent measures, worrying that I had mites and figuring this all out I should have cleaned the coop at the same time/before they went back in. At least now I feel I have a few days breathing room to do it right. So I will retreat at the 10 day mark and wait to clean the coop until then and put them back in a clean coop. I am nervous about the Sevin dust and really prefer not to mess with it more for my sake than the birds'. Is Poultry Protector more of a preventative or will it break the life cycle of the mites? If it is a preventative, what exactly is it preventing in terms of the mites, I wonder? Thank you again!

 

[dawg53]

I've never used poultry protector, only sevin.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

tuskajones- Poultry Protector has stunned wasps, killed ants, and has treated the walls/cracks/crevices of my coop nicely.

However, when my chickens had mites, I sprayed once under each wing and once on the vent with Poultry Protector just as a preventative I thought. The next day I was bitten by mites and thus found out we had mites. I then dusted with poultry dust and that killed them.

If you could dip them maybe that would work but I don't see on the package how concentrated you should make it- also this is WINTER and is a bad time to dip a bird as you would have to blow them dry. So I'd say to go with dust, definitely.

I like to spray the coop with it frequently so I'm not inhaling that permethrin liquid spray all the time. I have read Orange Guard is a good preventative for the coop also.

For a mite infestation I believe in chemical dust. I would definitely consider Poultry Protector as a preventative since it was driving the mites off the chickens and onto me.

 

[casportpony]

Orange Guard didn't work for me.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Orange Guard didn't work for me.

Good to know- thanks. I have never bought it.

 

[Michael Apple]

Ivermectin, I won't use. I did before and found it totally ineffective. Plus, I like to eat my chicken's eggs. I've found that cleaning the coops thoroughly every three months, using Ravap, or Permethrin for insecticide, and worming with Enzum or Wormazole keeps my flock free of pests. I never have to dust or spray my birds. DE is worthless for chickens, and the amount of respiratory difficulty a bird can have as a result of it's use leaves it reserved for the garden.

 

[Juise]

Sorry I didn't get back, I thought I did!

Just curious, how did it go?

I don't even remember what all was going on at the time, but I was super overwhelmed, and despite wanting to wait and find out what happened in the name of science

I eventually also dusted with garden and poultry dust, for a few reasons.

1) I realized how long this could potentially draw out the amount of time that we would be tossing eggs, which isn't something that we could really financially afford. Paying for feed works because we pay less for human food in return, and I was not comfortable eating or feeding my family the ivermectin treated eggs, although many people do.

2) One chicken in particular developed a really severe case, she was still a young pullet, her little beard and muffs were just caked, and I didn't want my experiment to cost any lives.

3) I had too much going on, and I just needed to be done with what I could be done with as quickly as possible.

So I may try again in the future, and if I do, I will definitely post my results, but for now, I'm still unsure.

I can recall only one mite problem and that involved hens crammed into a chicken house. My free-range birds do not have enough mites on them to detect. Maybe might control can also involve changing how birds are kept.

I have 11 chickens in a 12 foot by 8 foot coop, with an 8 or 9 foot ceiling. Most the year round, the coop door (which is a large people door,) is wide open, allowing them access to an enclosed, secure run that is 12 foot by 16 footish. (I can't remember precisely off the top of my head, but about that long, within a foot or two either way.) The entire run is open, covered with hardware cloth. The run is only so they can get out of the coop if we are away, and so they can get out of the coop as early as they want any time before I get out there. I don't rise as early as the chickens.

Every morning I let them out to free range. My chicken free range all day every day that they want to. (Some days in Winter they would rather not!) Both short walls in the coop are also open almost completely for most of the year, they are hardware clothed, and we put panels over them only in the Winter, leaving a gap at the top for ventilation.

The point I am trying to make is that a mite infestation does not necessarily mean that you are cramming too many chickens into too little space, or that your chickens are not kept in good conditions. I care for my birds, and I think they are pretty well off, as chickens go. I keep their home clean. They have plenty of space, plenty of ventilation. The don't even use half of their roost.

You cannot assume that someone battling mites is a poor chicken keeper, that is unfair. After all, many wild birds have mites, and that is where your domesticated chickens are getting them from. Does that mean the wild birds are packing themselves too tightly in their nests?

Of course not. Free ranging, well kept bird can and do get mites, too.

 

[casportpony]

You're right, some of the worst mite infestations were on birds living in trees. The last place I lived had such a tree... I peeled away a little bark and mites fell all over me. Had to spray that tree, lol.

 

[tuskajones]

Just an update. I retreated with Ivermectin at 10 days and stripped the coop and sprayed it each day with Poultry Protector. A week later still found more than a few mites on a few birds. I finally gave them a dust bath with food grade DE and continued my poultry protector. Two days after the de, I found NOT ONE mite; it has been four days of no mites. I searched more on de and found this from penn state

www.extension.org/pages/66149/external-parasites-of-poultry

I will retreat with de tomorrow at four days. I am a believer now in de. Whether it was the treatments with the ivermectin, the poultry protector, the de or the combo of weapons against the mites, I feel I have at least won the battle, if not the war.

 

[tuskajones]

Just wanted to note the part in the article that says

"DE is abrasive and will remove the oily or waxy cuticle layer on the outside of a mite. When this thin, waterproof layer is lost, the mite loses water and dies."

Makes sense to me. The de certainly dries out my hands when I forget to wear gloves.