Poultry Red Mite Prevention

As red mites can be brought to your flock or chicken house by wild birds or mammals, there is no 100% guaranteed way of preventing red mites from reaching your chickens. It is unlikely nowadays that you will be able to keep chickens for any length of time and not come across these mites. However there are certain measures that you can incorporate into part of your chicken care routine which will lessen your chances of having a major red mite infestation.

 

If you are to avoid a major infestation of red mite it is important to be vigilant and treat the problem before it grows. One tell-tale sign of infestation may be the chickens reluctance to go back into the hen-house at night. The best time to check for red mites is early morning, when they can be seen easily by the naked eye after feeding on the blood of the birds overnight. Another tell-tale sign is a build up of a grey dust in the coop, this is the waste matter from the mite. Look particularly under perches and in perch sockets for live mites, they can also be found hiding in the dust on the floor under bedding and in the timber joints. Another good way of checking is to run a tissue, in the dark when the mites are likely to be feeding on your chickens, along the underside of a perch and check for tell-tale bloodstains.

Preventative methods

There are a wide variety of methods used by chicken keepers, with varying success, here are some of them:

1. Make sure all joints and cracks in nest boxes, perches and the chicken house in general are sealed wherever possible, as these are where mites love to hide. The lack of hiding places is one of the strong arguments for selecting a plastic hen-house over the traditional wooden one.

2. If you have cracks and crevices you can make sure that there is nothing nasty lurking, by regularly using either a pressure washer, a wall paper steamer or if you are happy you will not burn the house down a blow torch can be used.

3. Double-sided sticky tape or fly paper can be applied to the underside and ends of the perches.

4. A solution of Paraffin and Vaseline can be applied to cracks and crevices, which will smother any lurking mites. Carbolic soap can also be used with the same result.

5. Barrier Red Mite Powder is an insect repellent for use against red mite and versions are stocked by most good poultry suppliers. This can be applied directly to the birds and should also be sprinkled liberally on the housing, paying particular attention to the perch ends, corners and crevices.

6. Provide dust baths for your chickens, this is the natural way for birds to rid themselves of parasites. Since red mites only attack the birds for a couple of hours at night the dust baths wont in themselves get rid of any mites. However if a dusting powder such as Diatomacious Earth is added to the dust, the birds will be nicely coated ready for any night-time attack. When the red mites crawl onto the birds at night, they will rub against the diatom, this is fossilised algae which has a crystalline structure and is highly abrasive to the mites' waxy shell, so cuts it open, causing the mite to de-hydrate and die.

Red mite is an increasing problem for backyard chicken keepers and is a potential problem that you cannot afford to ignore, so good animal husbandry and preventative practices are essential.