[evie2]

I'm intrigued leon-dom, can you elaborate please

[JACDORE]

Yes where do you get these smoke bombs from??? And what they called ??

[gingerplant]

We have two wooden hen houses at the bottom of the garden (wooden & onduline roofs), under trees where wild birds roost, and seem to have escaped the dreaded red mite so far... perhaps the poultry shield has helped... but do you think it's only a matter of time?  Is it truly inevitable that we will get it?!

[newatthis]

hi, i have a big problem with red mite at the min, someone did say spraying with jeys fuild and water got rid of them but i dont think its working yet, have tryed the earth stuff it works ok on the ends of the perches but i dont think im winning yet, it's could be due to me not keeping up with the cleaning  due to problems with famerliy members, but im getting on top of it now, did a mayjor clean out today and i was  at how bad the problem was... so im getting more of the earth stuff and poultry shield and a large tub of washing up liq and giving that a try again (it worked last yr when i saw the first signs), i just hope it will work this yr...

any ideas on anything esle i should be doing...

[cejx]

I cured red mite, by buying an Eglu cube and burning my wooden hen house.  Today (4 weeks after burning) we discovered a bit of the old house which escaped the fire - still had mite.  They could live through a nuclear war these things!

[evie2]

We saw smoke bombs in pets at home yesterday

[VickyW]

I cleaned my girls out yesterday and when lifting out one of the perches I found a small cluster of dark red mites - I assume red mite!
They were only in the one place so I cleaned the whole coop, sprayed it with dilute Smite and pasted the ends of the perches & their fixings.
I also Smited the girls.
Doing it all again on Thurs so I hope it works, only had them 3 weeks, shows how quickly you can get infested 

[Bantymad]

Iv got red mite to, have done all the sugested things, am trying a bomb tomorrow, got them from flyte so fancy. I have a great vet who is mobile, she has treated all my girls with ivermectin spot on and am now thinking if there not gone in a week i will buy either Tyrant or Stingray, they are defra approved but very strong and must be kept away from other animals, they are also very expensive, but will definatly kill red mite. am saving up for an eglu maybe my early Christmas treat. Good luck to all fighting the red mite war.
Best regards
Glenda

[yacks]

i have been fighting a battle with red mite this year and am winning inside the coups however in the ground around them i feel like i am going two steps forward one step back... i have been using poultry shield and diatom in housing's ... made to paste and have a wonderful mud coloured coup's, however, the ground is a different matter ... have used first washing up liquid then jeyes and then covered ground in diatom and still they come up on to boots when disturbed .. is there anything else i can use to kill them ??

[newatthis]

im not sure what kills them on the mud, that would be interesting to find out what other people have tryed and what has worked and not worked as i have the same problem and i cant move the run as it's on my allotment and is a large run...

[hillfooter]

We have two wooden hen houses at the bottom of the garden (wooden & onduline roofs), under trees where wild birds roost, and seem to have escaped the dreaded red mite so far... perhaps the poultry shield has helped... but do you think it's only a matter of time?  Is it truly inevitable that we will get it?!

YES.  New wood houses are treated with a wood preservative which contains an insecticde designed to kill wood boring and eating insects.  It kills RM too but after a couple of years it's all leached out and reappling garden furniture preservative that doesn't have an insecticde, it's mostly based on a water repellant, is not effective against RM.  You need to use a proper effective residual pesticide spray of which there are several.  One application costing no more than £7 will cure the problem after a single application for upto 18months or so depending how often you clean out with a detergent. Forget expensive spot treatments, RM powder or spray and Jeyes fluid (the modern formula has no redidual effect) all of which are not effective at eradicating an infestation for the simple reason they will only work on contact and once dry have no residual effect.  The powder is just expensive talc for chickens and as effective as dust.  Creosote is now banned except for reapplication by professionals and is harmful on contact with chickens when wet.  I've heard creocote isn't effective either though i've never tried it as it's so messy looks dark and disgusting and not the sort of stuff I want to use on an animal house.

I give one treatment of a pesticide in spring each year and never use a detergent or Poultry Shield and just sweep out wood shavings, spray a disinfectant Vanadine V18 (often recommended for pigeon lofts), paint with a diatom slurry (paying attention to roosts and corners replace the litter once every 4 weeks and never see a red mite.

If your house has roofing felt you are issuing an open invite to red mite heaven.  Any house which is offered for sale with a felt roof is designed by someone who doesn't understand the basics of chicken keeping and is likely to have lots of common mistakes built in.

HF

[hillfooter]

i have been fighting a battle with red mite this year and am winning inside the coups however in the ground around them i feel like i am going two steps forward one step back... i have been using poultry shield and diatom in housing's ... made to paste and have a wonderful mud coloured coup's, however, the ground is a different matter ... have used first washing up liquid then jeyes and then covered ground in diatom and still they come up on to boots when disturbed .. is there anything else i can use to kill them ??

If indead these are RM once the frosts come they will be gone. You could try a flame torch or an insecticide.

I find it hard to believe the ground is infected but the house isn't.  This means they must be still feeding on the birds at night in the house but hiding on the ground in the day.

HF

[hillfooter]

We just found red mite in the hen house and one of the chickens had sat in the dog bed and we noticed a mite in the dog bed so we put the dog bed in the bin, can red mites live on my dog or humans? Please help as the dog sleep in our bed at night sometimes!

Hi 3FatHens.  Welcome to this site.  Why not join the forum and people can then PM you rather than having to post on a public thread.
HF

[Tenhens]

Hillfooter, could you tell me what insecticide you use. I have tried jeyes and as you mention it does not seem to work.  Recently took our coup apart although it didn't have a felt roof there was a sheet of thin plywood on the underside which I took off, absolutly riddled.

[Madrat]

We have two wooden hen houses at the bottom of the garden (wooden & onduline roofs), under trees where wild birds roost, and seem to have escaped the dreaded red mite so far... perhaps the poultry shield has helped... but do you think it's only a matter of time?  Is it truly inevitable that we will get it?!

YES.  New wood houses are treated with a wood preservative which contains an insecticde designed to kill wood boring and eating insects.  It kills RM too but after a couple of years it's all leached out and reappling garden furniture preservative that doesn't have an insecticde, it's mostly based on a water repellant, is not effective against RM.  You need to use a proper effective residual pesticide spray of which there are several.  One application costing no more than £7 will cure the problem after a single application for upto 18months or so depending how often you clean out with a detergent. Forget expensive spot treatments, RM powder or spray and Jeyes fluid (the modern formula has no redidual effect) all of which are not effective at eradicating an infestation for the simple reason they will only work on contact and once dry have no residual effect.  The powder is just expensive talc for chickens and as effective as dust.  Creosote is now banned except for reapplication by professionals and is harmful on contact with chickens when wet.  I've heard creocote isn't effective either though i've never tried it as it's so messy looks dark and disgusting and not the sort of stuff I want to use on an animal house.

I give one treatment of a pesticide in spring each year and never use a detergent or Poultry Shield and just sweep out wood shavings, spray a disinfectant Vanadine V18 (often recommended for pigeon lofts), paint with a diatom slurry (paying attention to roosts and corners replace the litter once every 4 weeks and never see a red mite.

If your house has roofing felt you are issuing an open invite to red mite heaven.  Any house which is offered for sale with a felt roof is designed by someone who doesn't understand the basics of chicken keeping and is likely to have lots of common mistakes built in.

HF

Can you suggest a pesticide please, I have no idea what to look for.