[The Goods]

Could any one give us some advise on red mite.  We recently took on a loney chook who who's friends had been eaten by Mr Fox.  Since Grace's arrival our girls house suddenly seems run alive with red mite.  Not sure if they came with Grace, but now we can't seem to get rid of them.

We have a wooden hen house and we have recently dismantled it, cleaned it and gave a full spray.  They disappeared for about a week and are now back with a vengeance.  We have now purchased some Diatom, in the hope this will work.

Does anyone have any other advise? 

Thank you ladies/gents.  Jules

[Casey76]

Hi Jules,

Red Mite can be very persistent, unfortunately.  I don't live in the UK, so I don't have any personal experience with the branded products, but I have heard very good things about "Smite"

Your coop may need two or three times a weekly clean out/disinfect for about a month to catch all of the various life-cycle stages of the red mites.

Don't use a power cleaner on the ground you are keeping the coop on, as you just wash the mites out of the coop, and then they can climb right back in.

If you do a search for "slurry" by Hillfooter there are many helpful threads on a recipe for the DE and how to use it effectively, rather than as a dry dust.

Good luck!

[kegs]

Here's the slurry recipe.

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=81422.0

[feelingbroody]

I was going to say the same if you search on Hillfooters posts to me he gave me some fantasic advice easy to understand and to date we have had no reoccurance.

Good luck with the horrid critters

Broody

[Abacus]

The only time this happened to me I used a steam cleaner - it seemed to get the whole life cycle of the dratted things....

On a interesting front we managed to get an infestation of fleas - still figuring that one out and still suffering from an imagined personal infestation....

[joyfull]

smite organic is simply DE. I am not sure about the professional version and also not sure if you need a license to use it. As soon as I find out I will advise, in the meantime use poultry shield weekly until the redmite has gone.