[Eve]

We've been keeping chickens in an airy run which houses 2 wooden coops, one of which has a felt roof. The coops have been in use 5 months. The pooh on the floor of the coops is removed every day, so they are clean apart from the pooh stains. The nest boxes etc are all made of plastic and cleaned regularly, and the straw in the boxes is replaced regularly as well. The hens are all ex-batts and never wanted to perch, so there are no perches for mites to hide under.
Although the chickens don't appear to suffer from lice or mites, since I have spare time this week I was thinking of treating the coops just in case there's an infestion around the corner - quite literally, as one of our neighbours has just sprayed his coops, which makes me wonder...
But what products work best and should I use (or not)?
I decided on spraying Poultry Shield all over the coops and in every nook and cranny. But how long do we have to wait until the chickens can use that coop again? Just until the wood is dry later that same day? And do you need to disinfect the coop as well as use Poultry Shield?
Once you've used Poultry Shield, would you need to apply any mite or lice powders as well e.g. the Barrier brand products? As our hens don't seem to have lice or mite, I would imagine I can just let them walk back into their treated coop without having to dust them with anything?
Then there's diatomaceous earth, which I was going to add to the dustbath. As the ground of the run is compacted soil, shouldn't this be dusted with diatom powder as well? Especially since I'm planning on covering the ground with mulch to stop us from slipping in wet weather, and mulch may well harbour all sorts of things after some time. And how often should this be repeated?
Just thought I'd ask, prevention being better than cure, and all that    I could do nothing at all until I'm certain there are lice or mites present, but then it'd be sod's law that I'll be very busy at work and the weather will be foul   
 
 
 
 
 

[Laurasfarm]

We use poultry shield a lot, it has disinfectant properties so you shouldn't need anything else.  I would let the hens in once it's dry.

If you don't have any might problems I would use the diatom in nest boxes and dust bath. It's not much good just on the floor as the hens need more contact with it.  Keep an eye on the nest boxes as you don't have perches that's were there most likely to strike.

[Anke]

Treat all your sheds, roosting bars etc with Creosote, the old stuff (which you can still get if you tell them it's used for fencíng posts). Never had a mite problem since. Honestly nothing else works actually in the long term - we did try other stuff in the beginning too...
We also use plastic nest boxes, but ours is a fairly cheap set-up just a normal shed with some nest bixes in the corner... Plastic boxes just cheap ones from the pound shop, hole cut into the front and peice of wood on the top. Works well, easily cleaned too.

[Castle Farm]

As above use creosote, but you may have a problem getting it unless you have a farm or holding number.
Second option that works just as well is parrafin.
Third option is diesel.The oil stays on and in the wood and suffocates the mite and burns the eggs.

I tried poultry shield and unless you keep doing it every week or so they come back. Much to expencive for what it is.

Creosote not only kills mites but protects the wood.

[Mrs Snoodles]

I am a creosote fan too.  Just done the coops last week. You'll need to air the coops for a bit afterwards. I tend to leave them for about 3 weeks.

If I do get red mite I knock it with ficam w or the stuff used for racing pigeons blah... My mind has gone blank

I don't really rate all the other products. I have tried them in the past and spent a nice lot of money with it too! only to resort to using the heavy stuff to finish things off.

I have a friend that uses D.E. and swears by it. But she uses it all year round and is fastidious about cleaning.

[scotelf]

I use an old spray bottle with a solution of jeys fluid squirted in all the wee nooks and crannies. You can see the red mite about 10-15 minutes later crawling out of their hiding spaces. I do this roughly every 7 days. You don't need to saturate the wood and it's dry within an hour. Then diatamous powder and clean bedding. Some of my houses have perches. I have used Vaseline on the perch ends before. That worked well. Now I just use the dia.powder. I don't have much of a mite problem. (Not compared to some I have seen anyway  )


Hope some of these ideas help. 

[Castle Farm]

Jeyes fluid doesn't work. I had a small infestation in a coop last week. I sprayed it with Jeyes Fluid and really soaked it.

Next day they had re-clustered, so I creosoted them..

end of.

[Eve]

Thanks, all. I have a holding number so can get creosote, just can't leave the coops to air for that long as the birds use both coops all the time, I'll try one of the mentioned alternatives until we have a solution - or a bad infestation 
 
One of our coops is also just a small converted shed, and the plastic nest boxes are unused cheap storage boxes which had been in the garage for nearly 10 years - I knew they'd come in handy one day 
 
 

[Mrs Snoodles]

Eve, actual prevention of redmite is questionable. creosote helps, D. Earth is meant to help if used continuously however the key to dealing with the whole red mite problem is to keep an eye on your coops and look out for the signs of infestation. Then act FAST.

they tend not to infest over winter but still look out for silvery eggs on the nooks and crannies, red spots on your eggs and blood spots on a perch,  or in the nest boxes.  A good idea is take a torch at night and have a good look then. Just occasionally, then more often is Spring.

You may not even get red mite, many people do not.

If you can't creosote, personally I would do nothing for now. Just keep an eye on things and make sure that when you need to do something you have everything to hand. Ficam w can be brought from Bowden and knights in Norfolk btw.  Handy to have a satchet, not very nice stuff, but you can treat your coops if necessary, let them dry out and pop the birds back in. 

[hughesy]

There's an awful lot of paranoia surrounding red mite. Most of it perpetrated by the massive poultry accessory and supplement industry. As Mrs Snoodles has said you might never get it. I check for it periodically but in 5 or 6 years of chicken keeping have never seen one.
On the subject of the "industry" have you seen how many things you need to buy for your poultry these days? The magazines are full of them all claiming some very dubious and hard to prove or disprove benefits. Your birds will surely die if you don't hand over your money right now.

[Maria1970]

I use Diatomaceous earth, I used it 4 years ago to get rid of the mites and now I use it as a preventative.
Put it in an empty washing up bottle (cleaned out and dry) and dust the edges of the house then put a layer on the straw which the chickens will dust bathe in and they stay mite free too.
Have never had mites since I started using it.

[Eve]

Thankyou 

[AndrewMBaines]

This year, we had mites for the first time in 8 years. Talking to the vet, it's been a bad year due to the damp, warm weather. If you didn't have a problem this year, you're doing something right!
We really struggled to get them under control - tried all the 'nice' methods, then tried a blow torch on the tricky bits. Nothing worked.
In the end, bought a cheap second hen house on amazon, nuked the old one with nasty chemicals, and left in unused for a couple of months. Seems to have worked.
While we transferred, we used the earth stuff in the new house, that seems to have stopped any new infestation.

In your original post, you mention having a felt roof on your house - I thought that felt was a no-no as the mites could get underneath and remain unseen - I wait for wiser comments to confirm.
Best of luck
Andrew

[Eve]

Yes, it's the felt roof I'm worried about - that coop is a little shed bought new but at a knock-down price, the felt roof was the compromise for the price 
Thanks,
 
Eve 

[mwncigirl]

There's been a few threads about mites recently. After trying everything, we resorted to creosote and even that didn't work. It seemed to but when I tapped various bits of the coop about a week later (which was empty to air) some (quite a lot) little grey mites crawled out. Definitely a bad year for them. We've never had them before.