Chickens & Red spider mites

[Jagtokia]

Our chicken house is infested with red spider mites. Millions of them. One of our bantams died earlier this summer, and she was covered in them. I've been spraying with "Deosan" every couple of days, which seems to improve things slightly, but does anyone know of a more effective solution (any predators for example?).

Many thanks!

[icemaiden]

you could use harkers pigeon dust for red mites. Do you do the chickens and the house? Both will need to be done. Even to the extreme that you may have to dismantle the housing as red mite lives in very tiny holes and crevices, you should completely treat the whole lot. Also red mite only feed at night so you will never see the blighters to treat them direct.

[Solarjunkie]

Horrible things, aren't they? They're not spider mites, of course, but red mites which get their colour from your chickens' blood! They are grey when they haven't fed.

I spray my chicken house once or twice a year with winter tar wash, the same stuff you spray on your apple trees to stop bugs on the apples.

The mites rest in tiny crevices in the perches & come out & feed on the roosting birds at night, so as well as spraying your whole shed with tar wash, I suggest you get new perches, and put a good dollop of motor grease around the ends, hopefully that will stop the little ****ers walking along the new perches to get their dinner.

I don't know how long the mites can live away from their hosts, but I suppose if you were to put the current perches in storage for a few months, they would be "clean " and ready to change over again.

If nothing else is available, I would move the birds to temporary accomodation & spray the shed thoroughly with good old Jeyes Fluid - it should help a bit.

[Jagtokia]

Thanks for both answers. I didn't realise that red mites aren't the same as the red spider mites you see wandering around on walls, but now you mention it, there are grey ones wandering around too (presumably looking for lunch).

As for how long they survive away from their hosts, I took them out of their house and sent them on "holiday" to the back garden in a brand new ark for 4 months over the winter and early spring, partly to try and get them away from the mites, but also to let the grass recover. Having put them back, this year's infestation is as bad as last year's.

Given my lack of success by spraying and regular cleaning, I'd love to try some sort of natural predator (like nematodes for vine weevils) or some kind of smoke bomb that could get in all the nooks and crannies, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

Meanwhile, I'll give the winter tar wash and the pigeon powder a go. Thanks again for the suggestions.

[lilypops]

I cleaned my shed with jeyes fluid first then brought some red mite powder that I made into a wash dunked all the birds then sprayed the shed througholy this was 10 days ago this morning I was horrified to see what I first thought was blood on the perches in fact it was a massive recolonisation of the mites & they had obviously has a feast last night on the poor birds. So I think they have a 10 day cycle.
In my chicken book it states that you should treat the house & birds several times if there is a heavy infestation.
I wonder if it is the dry weather as I havn't previously had a problem?

[tiptoes]

Try using a blow torch and run it around all the crevices and anywhere else they might hide then treat with powder. I hold a burning box on a stick and let the flames lick around the whole house but make sure you have bucket of water handy just in case!