[bockhamptoners]

Hi all, sorry not been on here for a long time but here now in desperation!!  

Our chickens are covered in brown mites, I've just looked in the coop with a torch to see they are all in and there are hundreds crawling around on the feathers!
We've realised now that the little 'mites' the kids have had on them are not grass mites as suspected but off the free range garden hens!

We clean out fairly regularly and dust the perches, beddi9ng and cracks with ..
Barrier - Animal Healthcare - Red Mite Powder
and
Gold labels Louse Powder

Have to say we've not handled the chickens and rubbed it in, just treated the quarters.

Anyone got any suggestions?
I know a big clean out is obviously happening tomorrow, assuming wife not gone into labour which is possible
and I can flush the coop because I built it with a liner so its waterproof and washable.

any other thoughts.......... we don't have 'handled' hens, they are pretty much free
Thanks,

sorry I should add I don't normally go out with a torch....so don't normally look.

also, our dog chewed chicken, maggie, that we posted about is doing very well and is our best layer worth the vets bill

[flipper_roo]

Hi, just read your post and had to join to share my Costly experience.  I had problems with red mite and tried almost everything on the market to rid the coop of them.  £250.00 i had spent and still had the blighters. I clean my coop out with disenfectant every week and replace all the bedding.  I tried poultry shield which did kill the ones it came into contact with, duramite, barrier powder, red mite powder... thats the few i can remember.  I ended up burning the coop because it was so heavily infested with mite.  it was only 1mtr sq, so wasnt that big of an area to treat.   Problem is they crawled up under the felt and it was impossible to get to them all.  I even tried sulphur candles and smoke bombs for fleas.  I build a small coal fire in the middle of the coop to see if i could poison them, but no..... Still my poor girls were getting eaten alive.  In total i  lost 5 bantams to mites.  I went to the local vets and he told me of a hen someone had brought in heavily infested with scaley leg mite. it was so poorly it was going to be put to sleep but they thought they would try one last thing... FRONTLINE spray.  The good news it it worked, so i bought the biggest i could and brought it home to treat my girls.  May i add this was 3 days after i burnt the old coop and all that was in it.   My new shed was infested too.  Even after i jeyes fluided the whole area.    The dose i gave my bantams was 3-5 squirts and the Larger breeds 5-7 squirts.  The spray works much better than the spot on where chickens are concerned.  this was 2 years ago and i was mite free until about a month ago. on first spotting the new infestation i rushed out and bought some more frontline, treated the chooks and alls fine now.  i also added iron tablets to the water in the coop and it helped build the chickens i had left back up.  They had become pale and listless. hope this helps


roo

[Spadefighter]

I burnt my coop too, but made the mistake of hosing it out first and spreading them everywhere. Have been using the liquid form of the Barrier powder diluted 20 to 1 in a sprayer which has reduced them a lot. I think the key is to repeat every few days to get the newly hatched mites.

[bockhamptoners]

Thank you for the Frontline advice, I already have the spray bottle for the dogs & cats so the hens will get doused first thing tomorrow
I'm hoping not to have to burn the coop as it's more a palace    but I had read somewhere about someone who lined there coop so mine is, it means I just power hose it out and the number of cracks and crevices is minimal...... I guess not minimal enough though      I hope a good power hose and then I'll seal every single crack and crevice with silicone!

I get the impression the garden is full of them as well? The chickens are 'free range' with the dogs, cats and kids.......... I now realise why the dogs are scratching but what really scares us is that the children have come in and we see the odd few on them..... obviously the shower sorts it out but it's a concern....... especially as boy 5, Ben, was born yesterday      We were sat in the labour ward debating the future of the chickens and it was bleak    a few eggs a day 'v' mites on your newborn and however much an animal lover it's an unfair fight.....the baby wins.   

SO any suggestions for getting them out of the garden?

One last comment, it may not be all the chickens fault, we have 5 oaks, big ones, and they pretty much cover half the garden so it may be from pigeons?.... again any thoughts?

Thanks all

[hillfooter]

Barrier Red Mite and their Louse Powder and their fly repellent sold for horses and may be other similar products are all based on the same active ingredient Citriodiol, which isn’t made by Barrier just used as a component.  Citriodiol is a trade name for a substance containing oil of lemon eucalyptus.  This is manufactured for use as a component for fly (particularly mosquito) repellents for application on humans.  As far as I have been able to find out it has not been tested for efficacy on chickens against red mite, which aren’t insects but are Arachnids (related to spiders).  In any case the action of a fly repellent on a human host in an outdoor situation is quite different from its application on a chicken in the confines of a chicken house.  Repellents make a protected potential host less attractive than an unprotected potential host.  When all potential hosts are equally protected this preference differentiation doesn’t apply as all hosts become equally attractive again.  Also applying the powder or spray to the house is ineffective as red mites feed on chickens not houses.  Repellents work by interfering with the chemical attractors emitted by the host, or the parasite’s receptors ability to detect them.  Houses don’t emit these attractors so sprinkling repellent powder in the house is just a complete waste of time.  Barriers products do smell nice and the red mite spray is mildly effective for about 20 minutes on you for repelling flies and mozzies!  As far as treating red mite infestations are concerned you’d be better off to save the £10 notes you’d shell out on repellent products and use them to beat the red mite to death.
 
A lot of treatments trade on the claim they are “organic” however to effectively treat Red Mite infestations in houses you will need a professional chemical insecticide initially at least.  This will preferably have a residual effect such as MILBENEX which is very effective but needs more professional handling such as breathing masks and protective clothing to use.  You also need to ensure that your house is red mite unfriendly by eliminating obvious harbourages like, cracks, seams, coverings such as roof felt.  You mention the house has a “liner” so check this isn’t providing a nice home for the Red Mite.  Start with a rigorous clean, wash out with a detergent such as Poultry Shield, seal cracks and seams, apply the insecticide, then regularly inspect the house for colonies and spot treat with insecticide.  Clean out the litter every two or three days until the colonies are no longer evident.  Then use something like Diatom powder on the floor in the nest boxes and paint a slurry into the corners and perches where the colonies used to infest.  Once the colonies have gone you can drop back to your normal regular cleaning and litter change regime.
I’m sure if you look in the stickies reference section there will be lots on red mite treatments and control which will give you good additional advice.
Regards

[dizzylizzie]

hi , i cant add to the good advice here, just wanted to congratulate you all on your new baby boy!
CONGRATULATIONS

[hillfooter]

Sorry Bockhamptoners just read your latest post.  I'm really surprised that the infestation is so great that your garden is infested.  Do you have a lot of hens and are you sure these are red mite and not Red Spider mite of which there's been a lot this year.  The following was extracted from a web article www.evergreengardenworks.com/mites.htm

"Red spider mites are just visible to the human eye and should be easily visible with a five power hand lens. They look like little red spiders. If you look carefully you should also be able to see eggs that look like microscopic pearls. They also make a visible webbing that looks like debris on the underside of the leaf, not on top. If the mites are very small, translucent, and appear to have two dark spots on their backs, you probably have two spotted mites, or one of their relatives. Always look on the underside of the leaf, that is usually where you will find them. Badly infested plants will have yellow and red mottling of the lower leaves."

If the garden mite are spider mite they are nothing to do with your chickens.

Red Mite can be controlled but you need to employ effective treatments with no holds barred to start with at least as they are very resilient to even regular cleaning regimes. Frontline should help too but treating the house is a must too as they can remain dormant for 8 months or so.  As we move in to the colder weather your infestations should recede anyway which will help.
Regards

[beulah59]

has anyone tried flea spray?

[grumpydad]

there is a post on the practical poultry website, that suggests people who have had wood chip delivered have had red mite infestations, from the wood chip, which in turn suggests that the mite live in trees, and possibly on wild birds, so they could well be everywhere, and just move into somewhere that they find acceptable, ie your coop.

[Foxy]

Excellent advice by Hillfooter.

Grumpydad, I am not convinced that the mite found in timber or bark chips can be redmite. A redmite colony in the amount seen in infestations in henhouses in not seen in a wild habitat.

[hillfooter]

I've never heard of Red Mite "living in trees" and there's been a great deal of rigorous research into Red Mite controls for commercial flocks and  I'm sure if shavings were a route for infestation it would have been identified by now.  More likely if having deliveries of anything seems to be implicated in outbreaks it's more likely to be due to poor biosecurity procedures.  Delivery trucks are great transporters of infection particularly if they have been used to transport soiled litter for disposal and then used to deliver bales of litter without a thorough clean.

Red Mite are in the main spread by wild birds and there's been a lot about this year no doubt helped by the exposive spread of backgarden poultry keeping.  When soiled litter is disposed of it should ideally be burned or at the very least disinfected though i doubt that would be practical to do effectively.

I'm probably going to be a little controversial here because it amazes me the number of backgarden keepers on this site who claim they clean out their chickens every day.  That generates an enormous amount of soiled litter which is a great source for Red Mite infestation so if you do do this make sure you also deal with the waste effectively also and not just chuck it on the compost heap where it is accessible to the chickens and wild birds and vermin to pick through.  I’m not sure how effectively composting (done properly) kills red mite so if anyone knows please post.  There’s an awful lot posted about the merits of this or that litter but I almost never see anything about litter disposal which is critical if you think about the whole cycle of reuse and practising  “green”  policies.  Personally I  change the litter in my houses every 2 weeks and I’m very sparing in its use and prefer to build it up by adding fresh on top when it becomes soiled rather than putting lots in to start with.  If you have the time and energy to poo pick your house daily without changing or adding litter then well done but think about the disposal and make sure you compost well.
Regards

[kitkat]

OK, just a question, i [touch wood] have not suffered from the dreaded RM so far, its widely believed wild birds are the main carriers, RM aren't meant to be on birds during the day, so where do they go ?
    Why doesn't everyone who has suffered list their conditions?
 A; amount of birds
 B;type of coop
 C;Space; in a run/ free ranging
 D;type of trees in garden/overhanging run
 E; bedding/disposal of.
     I would love to see if there is a link?   

[raeburg]

I think this summer has been particularly bad for redmite.  The only source for my lot must be wild birdds coming into the garden.  I found that the flea treatment Acclaim that you use on furniture , carpets etc worked extremley well against them where poultrysheild and the powders hardly touched the problem.

[hillfooter]

Hi Kitkat,
RM in light infestations live in the house but in heavy infestations can be found on the bird re Bockhamptoners experiences.  To add my experiences this year, which as Raeburg says has been a very bad year.

I have 4 houses Forsham Lenhams 504 (the mid size one) which are wooden.  The number of birds has varied through the year from over 40 to 24 depending on the breeding cycle.  At one time or another all but one house (the newest) has been heavily infested causing me to revise my control methods.  In many years (10) of poultry keeping I hardly ever saw a RM but I used to sprinkle Derris dust in the house after a fortnightly clean.  The EU has done for Derris as there are reported links to Parkinson’s  Disease and the cost of performing tests to enable Derris to be listed as a permissible insecticide to be allowed for use by amateurs is prohibitably expensive so it is no longer available as it used to be at garden centres.  I switched to Barrier Powders and sprays as although I wasn't religious about organic solutions I thought I’d give it a try.  The first year using Barrier I was heavily infested and had to resort to frequent deep cleans, using Jeyes, torching and disinfecting the houses etc just to keep it to an acceptable level.  The second year, this year, our experiences were repeated until I threw out the Barrier stuff and decided to find a professional insecticide which I did, and supplemented it with using Diatom painted on as slurry.  This has been successful in eliminating it entirely from the 3 badly infected houses but the one which wasn't infected has just developed a small infestation.   I hadn’t treated this with the insecticide as it held all young growers and hadn’t had a problem up to now.
My runs are 50 sqm per house  for 6 – 9 birds so lots of space, arranged in two blocks of two protected by electric nets.
Litter is changed every 2 weeks and composed along with horse manure and bedding at least 50 metres away from the runs, some is burnt if it gets too large a heap.  We use Snowflake shavings (dust extracted softwood) and chopped Beddown Traditional Chopped Straw.  Earlier in the year shavings were hard to obtain due to the turn down in the building market so we used hardwood chips and chopped straw for a while.  We still had RM with all these litters.   There are no overhanging trees.  There are lots of wild birds including pheasants which are the most common as the farm next to us raises pheasants and partridge for shoots and at various times we get lots of them wandering around as well as pigeons and crows.

We haven’t had any chx in this year.   We collect all our feed and litter so no deliveries.
I put the fact that newer housing tends to inhibit RM down to the fact the preservative kills them but as this washes out with cleaning and rain they become susceptible.  This explains why our new house although in the next run to an infested house remained mostly clear of RM.
When I found that the Barrier Powders and sprays weren’t working and I also had anecdotal evidence from chicken keeping friends that they’d found it ineffective too, I decided to ask Barrier directly if they had published efficacy test reports to show they worked.  Despite several exchanges of emails I never got a report though they claimed tests had been done but the results were confidential.  Having drawn a blank and being told never to contact them again I then checked with the manufacturer of Citriodiol, the active ingredient which is used in pretty much all the Barrier chicken and horse repellents, be they for lice, RM or flies.  This product is listed by the EU as a repellent (as Barrier claim) and according to the manufacturers is intended to be used in fly/ mosquito / tick repellents for humans.  They said they had no knowledge of any tests which showed it to be effective on chx for RM.  I should say that Citriodiol has an impressive list of trials published in summary on their website which show it to be effective on humans against named species of Mozzies and flies and ticks.  So if you want to use up your stocks of Barrier RM spray you will find it effective on you as a fly repellent.  Pack it in your bag for your Scottish holiday but don’t ask me what concentration to use.  My wife finds it works for about 20 mins!  The Powder is mostly sterilised Maize with fragrances with Citriodiol as the active ingredient.  You can use it as an expensive deodorant if you like.

If you do contact Barrier you may find, to deflect you, they will refer you to HSE (Health & Safety Executive) who are the UK authority for ensuring compliance to the EU regulations.  They will only be able to confirm that the substances claimed to be used in the manufacturers products are registered in the BPD (PT 19) programme and presumably therefore considered safe and can be legally sold in the UK.  They won’t be able to confirm that a particular product is effective according to its manufacturer’s claims.
Regards

[kitkat]

I still dont see how you can discount RM living in trees, when they live in henhouses, wild birds get them from somewhere.