[Aunt Sally]

Kym, if you read this I can't reply to the message you sent me.  It says I need to post 10 times before I can reply to messages.

I've pushed your posts up to 10 for you so that you can reply chickadee11

[hillfooter]

Hi Chicadee,

Just read this post having previously PM'd you with my standard advice.

If you want to get rid of RM without using any pesticide then clean, clean, clean again and put in hours of itchy sweaty work and spend a fortune on useless treatments like barrier RM products which are just expensive mosquito repellants and won't touch a RM infestation despite what you may be told.  Jeyes fluid has now been made so safe that the new formulations are ineffective too against RM.  Poultry Shield (expensive) or any detergent such as (cheap) washing up liquid with a disinfectant like Vanodine V18 or even household, will kill them on contact but is useles when dry.  Not an effective solution on houses where there's lots of hiding places.

But don't despair a good pesticide treatment is cheap easy to use kills them with one application and lasts for a year if you do it well.  Take sensible precautions in applying and you won't grow another head.  Afterwards you just need to use a normal cleaning regime and forget about RM and all the other quack treatments.

Simple really you know it makes sense.
HF

[hillfooter]

Oh just a comment on plastic houses and RM.  Many people like Eglus and their ilk as they believe (wrongly) RM won't live in them.  They will but plastic housing has a real advantage in having few harborages for them also they are very dry which RM don't like (thousands of cracks and crevices and humid conditions provided by wood is RM heaven) and also plastic is easy to clean.  So (well designed) plastic houses are good but plastic per se is not the answer.  There's some awful recycled plastic ones which look little better than wood for RM out there and some I think are just a waste of good landfill.

Regards
HF

[Aunt Sally]

  Good on yer HF

Plastic houses are brilliant but they have to be well designed for easy cleaning, good ventillation without draughts, and good thermal insulation.

Plastic is the new wood 

[hillfooter]

  Good on yer HF

Plastic houses are brilliant but they have to be well designed for easy cleaning, good ventillation without draughts, and good thermal insulation.

Plastic is the new wood 

Dead right Aunt Sally the new wood indeed.  We've just bought a very reasonable new plastic table from B&Q, end of season stock.  Bit odd though it's got a hole in the middle and an umbrella which is difficult to put up in the dining room.
HF

[Aunt Sally]

You'll get used to it dear 

[yolkie]

Though not an expert by any means, I thought I'd mention my experience this summer with RMs.  I noticed that I had a few in the coop around June.  I sprayed daily with poultry shield and treated the hens with Barrier red mite powder.  I even bought a device to smoke the RMs out.  Nothing worked. I discovered that the coop had splits, particularly in the roof which were 'unsprayable' and in other places, which meant that killing all of them was rather impossible.

Poor Juliet suffered the worst and was balding behind her (pale) comb from all the bites. I was also covered in bites.  Anyway, she started to virtually fall asleep on her feet in the day and quite frankly that was the last straw.  I bought an eglu go.

Within two days of its arrival, she was spritely again and although I saw the occasional mite within the following week, there are none now.  Juliet's comb is lovely and red again and her feathers have grown back fully. 

In my opinion, some coops are far from being 'mite-roof as advertised', and in fact apear to be perfect breeding grounds for them.

I hope this assists in some way

[Aunt Sally]

I'm pleased that yur hens are living in comfort again.  There can be nothing worse than being bitten by mites all night