[happygolucky]

they dont like the taste of humans.

[plumseverywhere]

I think ours must like the taste of goats milk soap then, I keep getting bitten! (oh, shouldnt' really say that...I'll lose customers now    )

[mentalmilly]

I dont believe it either, the dog scratches a bit, hope he's just moulting.

[Marches Farmer]

If the red mite get on you you probably won't feel them once they get beyond the sensitive skin on your hands and they make their way to the hottest part of your body - your head.  It may take a couple of hours but that's where they'll end up eventually.

[mentalmilly]

Sprayed the huts with the citronella recipe this afternoon after the blow torch session. Not as many little critters as a week ago.   If it does not work at least the huts smell better.  Will let you know if it works but might take a while.   

[melholly]

God this thread is beginning to look like a horror writers brainstorming session - blow torches, concocted recipes including Meths, mites in the bed, in peoples hair... sounds like The Attack of The Mite or something.


Tbh I didn't know they would 'live' on us. Naive as I am I cheerfully got stuck into to all the crevices in the Ark... Had a shower afterwards etc but did spend the following couple of nights waking up in paranoid scractching. Urgghh.....the very thought!


Scratching again now!
Mx

[plumseverywhere]

Last time I took my shed apart to treat it, I woke up (despite having a bath and scrubbing my hair) with intense itching all along my hairline!
Yesterday I took a perch out, turned it over into the sunlight and could see loads of clear/white mites running for cover - usually only see the red ones. eek!

Does creocote do as good a job as creosote? have loads of the stuff here and don't wan t to go buy more if I'm already equipped.

[Bodger]

I actually got around to ordering and paying for this last night.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DIATOMACEOUS-EARTH-Red-Mite-Powder-10KG-Feed-Grade-/231022744005?pt=UK_Pet_Supplies_Poultry&hash=item35ca0751c5
I took the torch with me last night when I locked the chickens up, so that I could see what was scurrying about.     I just hope that its good stuff.

[plumseverywhere]

I used Diatom last year. It smells nice. 

[Bodger]

Please tell me that it worked too.

[plumseverywhere]

  yes. It certainly helped. I don't think anything is 100% proof apart from (according to what I've read here..) creosote. I need to buy some more in to sprinkle the chickens

[ellied]

I've been using diatom weekly for a year or so now and thought I had it under control until this explosion.  Given the design of my coop I can't clean/creosote it completely effectively and cleaning or tackling what I can reach means sticking my head right in the side and I just can't do it any more   I went to the hairdresser yesterday and got my hair cut so short as she could manage without shaving it because I can't bear the whole thing any more

But, while I've left the pophole open and other coops, and the last few nights have fed them their corn earlier and left the run open so they come out again after, which they do, more than half are still choosing to go in that coop out of habit I suppose 

I am thinking of shutting it completely so they HAVE to find somewhere else, but how do you change their allegiance without upset?

Anyone that wants to offer to deal with the coop to make it habitable by them and manageable by me again, please feel free and quote a price by pm, I'll let you know when I have enough to pay and it can stay shut til then, I can't go back in there alone 

Do they really continue to live in your hair like headlice?  Don't they die for lack of chicken nutrition?  Would headlouse treatments from the chemist kill them?  Oh yuk, I'm thinking totally free range is the only solution but presumably if the hens fixate on roost spots even in trees the beasties would move in, especially if they're coming in on wild birds to start with? 

[Connor]

  A very bad year i had a lot of them!!

[Daisys Mum]

Ellied last time we had an epidemic of mites I got so paranoid that I used head lice treatment and yes it did work, that's if they were even in my hair in the first place
I also burnt my chicken house down and front lined all the hens before moving them to a completely new run and house, now I am a little more blasé about them and just creosote the houses and I have just bought a 20kg bag of diatomaceous earth to put down.
I think that unless you can keep wild birds out altogether you have no chance of being completely free of them, I was going to pressure wash the houses but felt that all that was going to do was to wash them out on to the grass and they would just move back in.

[mentalmilly]

2 days since spraying with the citronella solution and the mites are still there and more of them, so it probably is not working.  Went out to buy creosote today and will slap it on the hut tomorrow, that should stop the little blighters.  Itchy all over now.