[mwncigirl]

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 

[doganjo]

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

[mwncigirl]

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....

[doganjo]

The only problem is it doesn't dry,  I have wondered about using the steam cleaner instead.

[mwncigirl]

Do you think they would die off after a really cold spell??

[Mrs Snoodles]

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..... 

[in the hills]

And me  . Haven't checked for a few weeks .... thought I'd be safe.   Little blighters 


Pens don't dry well this weather.  How about diatomous earth?

[Daisys Mum]

 
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.

[mwncigirl]

i used the Total mite, many times, didn't work at all 

[Fleecewife]

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     
 
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     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 
Unfortunately they will always come back 

[ZacB]

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.
  Thats the plan for this year anyhow. (feeling positive  )

[fifixx]

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

[chrismahon]

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.

[mwncigirl]

Thanks Chrismahon,
 I'll look up Elector. We have treated the birds a number of times. I think nuking is the way forward! 


Cheers Mwncigirl (mwnci meaning monkey in Welsh)

[northfifeduckling]

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.