The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: sabrina on November 19, 2020, 12:14:20 pm
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Anyone know best treatmeant for hay mites. Although I wear gloves i am been badly bitten by the wee sods. My right hand is a mess and very itchy. I have tried creams for insect bites but not helping much. Just bought new leather gloves that cover my wrist and washing my jackets to see if that helps.
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Antihistamine tablets.
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Put insect repellent on your hands and arms, such as Avon skin so soft. This should stop them biting.
Or buy your hay from another supplier.
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Are these the same little mites that ended up turning the seams of my white shirts pink by their collected volume after loading and bringing in the hay bales in years gone by ??
Possibly not (cos I never was bitten, as far as I know, and I seem to recall we referred to the culprits of pink garment seams as "grass fleas"): if not, what are hay mites and what do they look like then - please?
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You wear a white shirt [member=152775]arobwk[/member] to bring in the hay bales? 8)
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It was "in years gone by", but I guess (because my mother was fussy) white school-shirts were demoted to casual use when they no longer passed the hot-wash whiter-than-white test ! (Or something like that.) :)
[ Oh and - doesn't every self-respecting hay-maker wear a white shirt ? ]
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It was "in years gone by", but I guess (because my mother was fussy) white school-shirts were demoted to casual use when they no longer passed the hot-wash whiter-than-white test ! (Or something like that.) :)
[ Oh and - doesn't every self-respecting hay-maker wear a white shirt ? ]
I must admit I used to wear my husband's worn out seventies pink shirts ( :yuck:) for humphing and carting hay because they had dense sleeves to stop the hay from prickling. Now I can't lift a dense haybale ::)
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Are these the same little mites that ended up turning the seams of my white shirts pink by their collected volume after loading and bringing in the hay bales in years gone by ??
Possibly not (cos I never was bitten, as far as I know, and I seem to recall we referred to the culprits of pink garment seams as "grass fleas"): if not, what are hay mites and what do they look like then - please?
They look like thick dust on the barn floor.
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Are these the same little mites that ended up turning the seams of my white shirts pink by their collected volume after loading and bringing in the hay bales in years gone by ??
Possibly not (cos I never was bitten, as far as I know, and I seem to recall we referred to the culprits of pink garment seams as "grass fleas"): if not, what are hay mites and what do they look like then - please?
They look like thick dust on the barn floor.
Uuggh! Is a photo do-able ?
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They look like thick dust on the barn floor.
Are you sure these are hay mites? We always get straw mites from the bedding on our cattle and donkeys in winter. But these are easily treated with ivomec (or similar) pour on. The animals scratch from them before treatment, but are unaffected after. But there are never so many mites that you can actually see them, and they've certainly never crawled onto me.
However we do get other mites that live in our disused sheds in the dust. These look like a silvery grey dust and will crawl onto you if you inadvertently touch a surface that they are on. I spray every now and then with permethrin (ie crovect or spot on) diluted about 10x with red diesel, or spread some louse powder about. This gets rid of them for a while.
I would suggest you spray or put louse powder on your barn floor and then sweep or vac it all up before putting some fresh hay in. See if that sorts your problem.
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I was going to suggest diatom - not expensive, and will kill mites
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The strange thing is this hay was made in June 2018. It was very green so could only be fed soaked when i had Dolly as she and one of the Shetlands was prone to lamintis. I bought £1000 worth as I feed hay all year round.At this point I was feeding 5 ponies and the sheep. Straw is not kept in this barn. OH swept out the barn before the new hay went in this year and it seems to be mite free. We fed this hay winter 2018/2019 the ponies had to be given injections as they were all very itchy. The other night I was taken hay out of the haynet to put on the floor for Jazz ( tiny shetland ) I used my left hand and right away run my hand under the outside tap. Within seconds I had bites on 2 off my fingers. You would think I had burnt myself under a hot tap.Very temped just to burn it to be honest.