Posts Tagged Red Mites
Predator Mite for Red Mite Control
Posted by Tim Daniels in Tim's Blog on September 12, 2011
I have taken delivery of a 25 hen packet of predator mites to test in the fight against red mite. They arrived from the Netherlands in a sealed (thank goodness) flat pack which easily fits through the letterbox. There was an A4 page with comprehensive instructions for using them from Chickenvet.
Macro photograph of an adult red mite and a predator mite
I will be sharing my findings on this ‘predator mite’ over the coming weeks and will eventually write an article on them for the main site which will be linked to from a comment below this blog post.
I would be interested to hear from anyone else that’s used these to control red mite in poultry houses or errm elsewhere?
The predators are incredibly small, yes, even smaller than a red mite – I have had to use a macro lens to try to get a photo of one on a sheet of paper. You can see from the photo how big they are in comparison to a red mite. The predator is shipped in a substrate material (that looks like potting compost to me) in the sealed bag you see in the photo below and can easily be tipped out onto the infected areas of the coop.
How Predator Mites are used in Chicken Houses.
Before you rush out and buy predator mites, it is worth learning a little bit about these helpful mites. Unlike the red mite, they aren’t as hardy and you don’t want to end up killing them accidentally at £35 per packet.
- They do not tolerate insecticides – If you have treated the coop with chemical products in the last 4 weeks you are likely to kill the predator.
- They do not tolerate water. You cannot wash out the coop once you have introduced the predator.
- Predator mites like it to be warm – 20 degrees C and moderately humid at 60-70% (but not wet!)
- They start to starve after 7 days. This means if you introduce too many, they will eat all of your red mite and then starve before the red mite eggs have had a chance to hatch.
- You need to be around when the predator mites arrive so that you can add them immediately to the chicken coop.
The Predator 'pack'
I introduced the mites following this guidance into two small hen houses. The predator is very small and barely visible with the naked eye. I will let you know how they progress in my next post!
Where to buy predator mites.
These predator mites come for St David’s Poultry Team AKA The Chicken Vet. Orders placed during the week are dispatched on the Monday of the next week and should arrive on the Wednesday. The predator mite (unlike the red mite) can only survive for 7 days without a feed so it is important to notify them if they get delayed in the post. You can buy them here.
More in a few weeks once I’ve had a chance to evaluate them. Until then,I hope the predators are hungry as there’s red mite in my coop that I want eaten!
How to get rid of a Serious Red Mite Infestation.
Posted by Tim Daniels in Tim's Blog on August 25, 2009
I went on holiday for a couple of weeks to come back and find one of my chicken houses was full of red mite! Not just on the ends of the perches but in every crack and crevice and in every corner. Red Mite are notoriously difficult to remove once they get a grip on a chicken house. When the weather is warm, red mite multiply very quickly and before you know it, you’ve got a serious infestation to deal with.
Dealing with a serious Red Mite outbreak.
So how do you deal with such a serious red mite infestation? Normally, for small numbers I would wash the house down with poultry shield and use a number of other red mite products here and there to kill off these unwanted visitors but with so many mites in the chicken house, more serious action was required. Here’s what to do:
Allow yourself a good couple of hours…
- Clean out the house, remove all loose bedding material. Strip the house down as much as you can. Remove as many parts as possible including pop holes, automatic pop hole openers and anything else that will unscrew easily.
Cleaning the chicken house to remove red mites
- If you have a felt roof, remove this – yes, unfortunately you will need to re-felt the roof. If you don’t you will find millions of red mites will still live happily under the felt.
- Using a high pressure hose / pressure washer, wash the house and parts down. Get the spray in every crack and crevice. This will take about 45 minutes if done properly. If you miss a crack, hundreds of mites could be hiding in there so it’s really important to ensure you get into everywhere possible. The spray will bounce back and soak you at times so wear old clothes and be prepared to get wet.
- Wait for the house to dry 10 to 15 minutes. Now look at it carefully – you should see red mites crawling around. These are the guys you missed that are coming out because they have been disturbed and are wet.
Spread generous amounts of Diatom on the bedding material.
- Go over the house again from top to bottom, again concentrating on the cracks.
- Repeat the above process as many times as necessary until there are very few mites coming out. The more you remove, the better. Even small populations can multiply quickly.
- Put your house back together. If you had a felt roof, leave re-felting until you are mite free for a couple of weeks. A temporary waterproof material should be used – plastic is ideal.
- Add fresh bedding material as you would after cleaning normal.
- Sprinkle a generous amount of diatom onto the bedding. The manufacturers recommend 500g per M2 which is quite a lot.
- Put a handful of diatom into your hand and rub it
Diatom should be rubbed into perches
into each perch, taking particular care around the ends and the underside. Whenyou have finished it should be white and smooth, like a gymnasts bar. Red mites have to crawl over this to get to the chickens at night.
Monitor the house for a few days, particularly on perch ends and re-apply diatom to the perches every couple of days or as soon as it starts to wear off.
If you have got into all of the cracks successfully, you should notice a drastic reduction in the number of red mite in the house – if you still find reasonable numbers, make up a spray mixture of poultry shield and spray onto these areas using a hand held plant mister.
Continue using diatom for a few weeks until there are no more signs of red mite.
 Click to see Diatom products on Wells Poultry |
You will find an article on Red Mite with lots more information on the main poultrykeeper site, there are also other posts about Red Mite in my blog – (select ‘Red Mite’ in the Tag cloud to see them) including My Top 4 Red Mite Products
If you have any other tips on controlling red mite or would like to leave a comment then please feel free to do so below.
You can buy Diatomaceous Earth from specailist poultry product suppliers – for example Wells Poultry.
I usually buy a large tub around 2KG as shown to the right but I also bought a small puffer bottle / shaker that is useful because you can refil it from the big tub making it easier to apply and less wasteful.
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