The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: mwncigirl on January 09, 2013, 05:50:22 pm
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Hi guys,
After lots of discussion on here previously about red mite, we finally got rid of ours (or so we thought) after three treatments of creosote, and also treating the hens. Months later, what do we find?!
I can't honestly believe it. I know, its been a really wet and warm winter but how can they have survived the repeated creosote?! ???
Just wanted to share really :rant:
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Can you drown them or can they survive that? I hosed down my shed with a power hose and just wondered. Never seen any though. Nor do I want to. Horrid things
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I would have thought, after all the floods and rain we've had they would have been washed out by now! would a power hose do it? Worth a try....
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The only problem is it doesn't dry, :'( I have wondered about using the steam cleaner instead.
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Do you think they would die off after a really cold spell??
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I wouldn't bother with a powerhouse. A friend on mine cleaned housing, came back inside, stripped off, bungee everything in the wash, got it on the line.....and the nasties were still to be seen :(
Reckon they'd survive a nuking along with the roaches!
Whatever you do, act fast. Blowtorch perhaps? Ficam?
Reading your post...I'm going to check mine tonight..... :o
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And me :o . Haven't checked for a few weeks .... thought I'd be safe. Little blighters :rant:
Pens don't dry well this weather. How about diatomous earth?
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One of my friends tried the blowtorch approach, burnt the whole thing down, it did get rid of the red mite though. I use Total mite kill made by Nettox it does seem to work but needs to be repeated every so often.
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i used the Total mite, many times, didn't work at all >:(
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A weedwand (blowtorch on a stick) can work very well as long as you don't point it at one bit for long - it's more of a waving about action. Cobwebs tend to create a bit of excitement too as they go up with a woosh. I must admit that every time I do a henhouse with the weed wand I wonder if this time the whole thing will burn :o
We use a mixture of approaches - the weedwand (repeated every day for a week or so if there are red mites present, to deal with their reproductive cycle time), creosote substitute inside and out, diatomaceous earth (readily available locally under trade names) to the sheds and to the hens. We have three henhouses but not so many hens, so we intend to give one house at a time a really thorough going over then leave it empty for a couple of weeks to dry before we do the next ones. Our sheds are garden sheds converted to suit the hens, made with lapped planks, so we are careful to get right into the cracks, and to take out the perches and frazzle any mites there with extra care ;D We have had better success since we started treating the birds too - I used to believe 'the word' that the mites stay off the hens in the day, but it's not true :chook: :chook:
Unfortunately they will always come back :tired:
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We were lucky until they stuck last year. We had a really nice henhouse, bit like a Suffolk beach hut.....but used shiplap to construct. Never again, the little buggers just get in all the gaps in between the boards.
Have now adopted the approach of making smaller houses from ply (still good quality if I say so myself), having a surplus to enable chocks to be completely moved onto fresh ground & new house while the old area has a time to recover plus old house gets a freshen up with creosote.
:fc: Thats the plan for this year anyhow. (feeling positive ;D )
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We hired a steam cleaner - that did the trick! We used it first thing in the morning on a non-rainy day and re-bedded around 4ish in the afternoon.
remember to upend the hen house if you can and do underneath along with the legs
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Hi Mwncigirl (so difficult to type). Red mite are living on the hens -too cold in the coop. Need to dust the hens to discourage them to get off and wipe themselves out in the creosoted coop. Dust bath with diatom and potash will do the same . We've had the same problem -red mite carried over on the birds. The birds need treating at the same time as the coop. They also evolve immunity so alternate treatments. Steam cleaning then creosote then Total Mite Kill and so on. Try Elector -worth reading about. It's a biocide equivalent in human terms to a nerve gas. Works in one spray on everything for one season -then they evolve immunity and back to the standard chemicals. Following year it wipes them out again, following year it won't so back to the basics. It's very good and very expensive with limitations.
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Thanks Chrismahon,
I'll look up Elector. We have treated the birds a number of times. I think nuking is the way forward! :innocent:
Cheers Mwncigirl (mwnci meaning monkey in Welsh)
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I've not checked for a few weeks but usually Diatomaceous Earth does the trick here. I mix it into a paste when it's bad and paint the whole house and well into the cracks. :&>
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If the henhouse is made of thicker wood it gives them more cover from any anti-mite treatment. We have a farm pond and the only way I've ever found to kill them was to weight the house with a breezeblock, tie a rope on the house and submerge the whole thing for a couple of days. Needs drying out for a couple of weeks but works every time. First dig your pond ..... Have, in the past, cleaned, power-washed, heat-gunned and dusted a house then left it empty outside for a year - and still found red mite in it!
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total mite kill, marvelous stuff!
I made it up and drowned the place with a garden sprayer, but be warned..... I forgot to wear a mask and had the mother of all nose bleeds afterwards :o :o
Fingers crossed I haven't seen em since, but I reckon that's cos I bought gallons of the stuff!
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Problem with spraying anything on wooden chicken coops is, unless you turn then upside down you can't kill the eggs laid in the 'tongue-and-groove' joint Colliewoman. So really you are only limiting their numbers not killing them.
We took ours apart and turned the panels upside down to administer creosote/ paraffin mix. You wouldn't believe how many came out of the grooves. They had already been 'total mite kill'ed and 'Smite'd plus steam cleaned. Anything less than creosote is only delaying the problem. Oh, and Elector.
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Diatomaceous earth as a paste turns into a hardened clay when dry, so I suppose it stops the nasties come out of the cracks. :&>
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Problem with spraying anything on wooden chicken coops is, unless you turn then upside down you can't kill the eggs laid in the 'tongue-and-groove' joint Colliewoman. So really you are only limiting their numbers not killing them.
We took ours apart and turned the panels upside down to administer creosote/ paraffin mix. You wouldn't believe how many came out of the grooves. They had already been 'total mite kill'ed and 'Smite'd plus steam cleaned. Anything less than creosote is only delaying the problem. Oh, and Elector.
That's why I use caravans for chicken houses, no tongue and groove ;) Does Creosote get into the joints? I would assume, probably wrongly that if other liquids don't get in there neither would that (and will admit to being one of the very few people that DETEST the stuff! The smell makes me retch, shame as It is so damn useful!)
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I've taken to making my own larger ones (too big to sink in the pond) from ply. If they get red mite I can simply disassemble them and creosote the parts. I think the best solution to red mite in T&G or roofing felt is a big bonfire. I tried one of those recycled plastic ones this year but decided it was for summer use only. Even with vents fully open, a line of holes drilled along the front and loads of dry bedding the whole thing ran with condensation and the bedding was soaked within a few days.
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We did take the houses apart to creosote and think it did a pretty good job. It seemed for a few months we'd got rid of them. But i reckon, it only takes a few remaining and some warm damp weather for the colonies to build up again.
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But did you turn the panels upside down to creosote them Mwncigirl ? You need to dust the birds the evening before they leave the coop to make sure all the red mite get off them in the morning. The powder doesn't kill them, just discourages them. Otherwise they carry some into their temporary house. We bought hybrids from Merrydale I think? One had red mite in her plumage. Fortunately dusting and 2 week quarantine is automatic for us.
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We turned one of the stables into a house for our chickens. The only wood is their perches so have not had red mite problem. As the stables are inside the barn in this weather chickens are quite content scraping about in the fresh straw and they eat any insects they find on the walls. years ago I had a shed for the chickens and in the end we burnt it as the mites were always there.
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Yep, we took houses apart and turned upside down and inside out. I reckon the chooks must have taken them with them, even though they were treated too. We re-dusted chooks last week, so hoping this snow might help as they won't like being on the chooks, and should freeze in the house?!
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Always meant to try a "swing" type perch - two metal rods attached to the ceiling, hole at each end of a piece of half-round with a bolt above and below the wood to keep it rigid. Maybe a good thick layer of grease at the top of the poles to stop red mite crawling down. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide?
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Bleach - diluted and applied using a pressure sprayer of some description ( I have used a simple hand sprayer and bigger). Wear a protective mask and douse the house, make the dilution as strong as you can stand. If your eyes are not stinging it isnt strong enough - I have not seen mite for ages? MB
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Elector will give you a year of respite Mwncigirl. Then you will have to alternate yearly between conventional treatment and Elector. We tried it two years in a row and second year it had absolutely no effect as the mites had evolved immunity to it. This is what the DEFRA vet had said would happen.
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What is Elector and where can I get some ?
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Elector is a Commercial Biocide Daisys Mum. It is the equivalent in human terms of nerve gas. Serious stuff and about £70 for the smallest bottle. Sorry but all our receipts are in the UK still. Search the net. It has to be mail order.