Brown & Red Mites

thanks Hillfooter for that reply and very interesting about the Barrier powders.   For a newbie like me on deciding that i was gonna get some girlies i went out straight away and bought the barrier powders both for redmite and louse and have regiliously dusted the girls and their house since then but the thought of all that when in fact these barrier powders dont prehaps do wot they say on the label is frustrating.   I have infact stopped now using these powders and just use the poultry sheild and most of all Diatom, i dust the girls with this and the coup.   I was interested to read about turning the diatom into a slurry.   I take it you just add water and then paint into knooks and crannys, i will be doing this at the weekend me thinks.  nickyx

Kitkat,
RM infest birds nests.  Nests can be found in trees and hedgerows.  To this extent you could say RM live in trees but only where birds are nesting.  Standard advice to commercial poultry keepers is to discourage wild birds nesting adjacent to poultry houses, not just for RM but disease spread through droppings etc.

Regards

please find a copy of a post from practical poultry about using a smoke bomb to help get rid of red mites.
have not used it as i have not had any mite yet, but am aware that if i dont keep on top of the hygene and cleanliness, it will only be a matter of time.

quote......
I suffered terribly with red mite and managed to get rid with a 4 pronged attack.
Firstly you must clean every cage at once and dispose of the rubbish, into your bins or local tip asap because they will very quickly migrate back into your shed.

Secondly, once all the cages are cleaned i spray every cage, until dripping wet, with poultry shield, which is an amonia based liquid that you mix with water. This mix gets into all the nooks and crannies and upon contact with the red mite, dissolves them into a green mush.
Thirdly and a day later i spray the cages with a powder called dia-secticide and this is diatomaceous earth that is obtained from a freshwater diatomite deposit containing the fossil shells of diatoms. It works in a physical and not a chemical way. The powder damages the skin, joints and mouthparts of the insects and absorbs body fluids. The insect usually dies within 24-48 hours of contact with the powder.
Lastly i use a smoke bomb called Pronafit, which is a smoke bath and the smoke stays suspended in the air for ages. This not only kills moths, gnats, lice and red mite, but it also opens the birds bronchials and assists them in breathing better. It is excelent for birds with respiratory problems (It also has the added bonus of leaving a lovely lemon smell to your shed for days) It says to leave for one hour and then open all doors and windows to evacuate the remaining smoke, but i dont, i leave everything closed until it naturally disperses, which can take up to 6 hours. But half a bomb is used for sheds averaging anywhere up to 16ft x 10ft.

I now have no mites of any form and will use the smoke bomb, once, every month as a preventative and a shed freshener and i will use the poultry shield and dia-secticied once a year when i do a big cleanout and repaint the whole shed.

Poultry shield can be obtained from www.biolinklimited.co.uk

Dia-secticide can be obtained from pest direct 9 The Shrubbery, Brereton, Rugely, Staffs, WS15 1JJ Tel 07968 117258

Pronofit can be obtained from http://www.bjffeeds.co.uk/catalog/65/pronafit

Red one's seem to have been eradicated for now
BUT still have the pesky brown and white things left!
They are not in the coop but are around the area.
They seem much smaller than the red mites, in fact the white ones are only just visable.
I've taken som photos.....
a wee beasty
a bunch of white ones on a wall, this is the gap between 2 bricks to give some scale
dozens crawling across wife sweatshirt arm (argh)
some on an egg just to give scale, all the specks are beasties.

Has any one any ideas what they are and how can I get shot of them?

the last 2 pics...

have you put down bark prehaps the white ones are coming from there.    nickyx