Chicken mites

I've only had chickens for a couple of years so my experience level is low. After doing some cleaning and rearranging in their barn yesterday, I took a break and sat down at the computer. Then I noticed tiny things moving on my arm, the size of the period at the end of this sentence. It then became apparent there were a lot of them! After shedding my clothes on the porch, I made a dash to the shower.

I sprinkled an insecticide dust in the chicken area of the barn and the nest boxes yesterday. Today I collected a couple of eggs and moved a couple of things around in the barn, and found mites all over me again! I sprinkled more of the powder in the barn, and slathered OFF with Deet on me.

What should I do next? I let the chickens into the dog yard every couple of days for tick control, but will they infest the dogs with mites? Have I possibly dropped enough mites in the house to cause an infestation? Will they try to take up permanent residence on me? - yuck! I'm heading back to the barn to add some DE to the insecticide.

Annoying, aren't they?

We use Orange Guard spray (got it at Ace hardware). Kills them dead and is safe to use around the birds and your dogs. It's also safe enough to spray on your hands if you see them.

The best thing to do is clean out the henhouse...or at least try and find where the mites are. We have had them before, but each time it has been only in one specific spot, so eliminating them was no problem. Each time, I suspected the mites came from wild birds, nesting in the barn above the chickens.

Make sure your birds have someplace to take a dirt bath each day...this will help them feel better.

I've never had to use sevin, but many people have. I try to stay with the products that I don't have to wear a mask to use safely.

Insecticide the hen house real good with a fogger after a thorough cleaning.

Then get some cattle Ivomec (liquid ivermectin) and put a couple drops on the chicken's skin on their back. Rub it in. Repeat the process in two weeks. Don't eat the eggs during or for a few weeks afterward to let the Ivomec clear.

Added: Mite species are usually very host specific. The chicken mites should not like the taste of you or the dogs.

Thank you, both! I am heading into town tomorrow and will look for some stronger stuff to kill the nasty things. The dust I used has carbaryl in it - similar to sevin, I think.

What confused me about these bugs is that I read that mites generally stay on the birds, but these things were on plywood partitions and other things I was rearranging in the barn. The chickens do enjoy their dust baths, but don't seem to be scratching themselves much at all.

I've gotten bird mites on me just from putting bird seed in the feeder. They do not feed on humans, but the feeling of them on you is disconcerting to say the least. I either blast the bird feeder with the hard spray from the hose before I get near it or just use long gloves if I have to get near it. I would think that Diatomaceous earth would be a good thing in this instance to treat the problem. It is NOT toxic to humans or animals, but care MUST be used to not breathe it in-it is tiny sharp shards that will pierce an bug and it dries out and dies, and it can affect the lungs of an animal or human.

You cannot use the DE for pool use-go to the feed store and get the stuff in a bag for worming horses and dust around in the areas needed and I do believe you could put it where the chickens would dust bathe in it and eliminate the mites automactically there. Personally I wouldn't want to treat chickens with something that could stay in their tissues and then consequently ingest when harvesting the chicken or their eggs.

Heres a forum discussion on the subject:
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/farmlife/msg091513395177.html?12=

And Heres a website with info on the use of several products and DE for bird mites:
(DE and another product called Ecomite are near the end, just below the picture of the Repel)
http://www.birdmites.org/strategies.html

For the birds which have mites on them and their legs (you can tell because their legs will look scaly and rough) you can slather a thick layer of vaseline on their legs. This will smother the mites. Add food grade DE to their dust baths and scatter it in the bedding in the chicken house.

DE also helps to keep down the flies, although chooks seem to find flies and maggots awfully tasty!

Berta

I dusted some DE around the barn, and bought a spray that is safe to use in there too. The bugs have disappeared! It is like there was a major hatch over 2 days, and then they were gone. None of the birds appears to be very agitated as you would expect if they were being bitten - except for one hen that just came off a nest after a hatch. She and her chicks are going outside now, and are able to take dust baths, but I did put an insecticide on her to help get rid of any remaining mites. Thanks again!