[Mischief]

Hullo all

I may be asking a rather silly question here. Most nights i have to lift one of my girls onto the perch as she likes nesting in the nestbox where the redmite seem to prefer!!! I put small logs into the box to stop her returning. I have to carry her around to the front of the coop and put her in from the front. During this time some of the red mites that are on her fall onto me and I can feel them in my hair and feel very itchy for the rest of the night. I have showers but have seen them crawling across my forehead afterwards. I was wondering if redmite can survive on humans or if they would just die.

(I do spray my coop weekly and just about manage to keep the redmite at bay)

Any advice would be much appreciated...........

[Roughlee Handled]

Firstly you need to get rid of the red mite in your coop.  If they are in the nest box they will be all over the coop. Soon a chicken will be spending 16 hrs a day in the coop. (Because its is dark) This is great news for the red mite. 
Red mite live in the cracks and crevices of wooden and plastic coops. 

I would suspect that the red mite will be living under the perch bars, so if they are removable remove them and check daily, if they are not removable make them so.

I understand that red mite have a waxy coating that keeps them alive, so most detergents are a killer for them.  eg Poultry Shield and Jeyes Fluid

......I use paraffin no bad stink and seems to kill mite no problems just brush liberally into the cracks and nooks

They will keep appearing for a couple of weeks so keep at it.

If after 3 weeks you still have them then look up Milbenx

Back to your original question can redmite live on humans. Yes and no.  I have read that they can live in your bed and bite humans.  "Poultry mites will bite mammals, including humans, causing painful skin irritation" http://www.pelgar.co.uk/redmite.htm

A number of incidents of poultry red mite parasitizing humans have been
recorded, since humans come in contact with the mitehttp://www.ncl.ac.uk/afrd/assets/documents/website-mite-background.pdf

[SMD66]

I echo what Roughlee said. you must keep up the spraying to get rid of them, your hens will suffer otherwise, while ever the mites are there they will be breeding.

I used poultry shield weekly for 4 weeks before I got rid of mine, and there were only a few.

diatom powder is also good as it doesn't wet the coop.  Put it in the nest boxes and along perches, the mite have to crawl through it, get scratched, de-hydrate and die.

I would try to dismantle the shed as much as is practical, find them and treat them.  Try wearing a baseball cap and tuck your hair in!
I had one crawl on my head, horrible things.

Good luck.