first of all you need to establish if you do have red-mite. Go out in the evening with a torch (a head torch is best as this leaves your hands free) and with some white paper slide it into any joints and crevices to see if it comes out with red on it. Also in the evening you may even see them crawling along (they are tiny though but often are found in clumps). If you do see some then gut your coop and burn all the bedding (on no account put it into the compost bin as red-mites can live for many months without food - they are grey without their feed of blood -and crawl back). Treat the inside of the coop with poultry shield and then a diatom slurry.
If you want a plastic coop such as an eglu (and they are very good) then look for a second hand one on e bay or pre-loved or even the Omlet forum where second hand ones are sometimes found. I have a chicken one and a rabbit one (the rabbit ones seem to be a lot cheaper and make great broody coops and may be fine for your two birds as they don't perch, but you will need to keep the bedding clean as they will also lay their eggs in there).
You can still get red-mite in plastic coops but they are easier to clean out and eradicate the blighters.
Another cheaper plastic coop is the doodlehouse which if you type their name into the search box on here you may find some photos of one that a member took of theirs
Thanks Hillfooter even the small coop (for 3 bantams) are still about £250 but they do look absolutely gorgeous, much prettier than an eglu! I looked at preloved, ebay etc last night and because eglu hold their money so well they are still too pricey for us for just 2 hens.
I convinced myself and then convinced my hubby we had them and we wanted to avoid another hen suffering, dying or potentially dead chicken on our hands. I admit I panicked without knowing the facts ie did we have them or not? Well now I guess we'll not know as we destroyed our old set up in favour of a newer version today. We spent hours late into the night googling home made eglu set ups and alternatives etc etc and my hubby came up with the idea of converting our spare water butt!!
We cleared the run completely of all their logs, perches and platforms and had a super duper tidy up and rake (we normally rake just weekly as they are in the garden for alot of the day free ranging) and then poo pick the nesting boxes and change bedding every few days or so. So, we have turned the water butt into a nesting/hen house for the 2 hens by cutting an entrance arch a little off of the ground at the bottom and covered in 2 towelling layers as before and placed it ona crate off of the ground with brick steps. I've put a cardboard layer on the bottom and have covered deep with hay and popped the lid on. They've put themselves to bed as usual which is great and they look very cosy inside indeed. We have put new logs etc in the run for them too.
This set up will be very easy to clean. Can I ask a few questions?
Is is ok they are bedded down on hay and not straw?
What should we clean the butt/hen house! with?
And is there a risk of redmite from the fencing near to the new house? If so how do we treat the pannels?
My husband and I have also been discussing perches but felt a) they never used the last ones and b) it's colder atm and they have been used to 'going in to bed' it probably wasn't a good idea what are your thought on this?
thanks everyone for all your input x