Red Mites
are parasites that feed on your chicken’s blood, and usually
hide away in the dark corners of a chicken coop, emerging at night
to feed on your poor unsuspecting hens.
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.
To give you an idea of how bad things can get a female red mite
in ideal (warm) conditions can lay around 100 eggs a day and these
eggs hatch and can become adult laying mites themselves in just
7 day.
So it doesn’t take long to figure out how big the problem
can become in just a few weeks!
Since they feed at night, they are difficult to spot during the
daytime. Typically red mites are almost white before they have
fed, blood red after a feed and a greyish black colour with partially
digested blood so you will see various colours of mites. Take
a look at this video below to get a close up of red mites.
To test for Red Mite you can simply wipe a white piece of kitchen
towel or a white tissue along the underside of a perch in the
dark. Any blood stains will indicate the presence of Red
Mite!
Red Mite Treatment
The only way to get rid of red mite is to give
your chicken house the most thorough of cleans and to treat both
your birds and their housing. Remove all bedding (burning the
bedding or move it well away from the birds for composting ) and
thoroughly clean the inside of the house, getting into every corner
and under every ledge or perch.
Dust all areas with red
mite powder, and disinfect every last millimetre of surface
with a poultry-safe
disinfectant. Let the chicken coop dry, then dust down the
corners and crevices with mite powder before allowing your chickens
to come home and roost. Make sure to refill with fresh clean bedding.
This will probably have to be repeated a couple of times to finally
rid the coop of mites.
You will also need to dust
down your hens too! Where there is a particularly heavy burden
the birds may become lethargic and would probably also benefit
from some poultry
vitamens to get them through the stress of red mite in addition
to the mite treatment.
Once you get Red Mite it can be an expensive and time consuming
task to rid yourself of them. Our solution to the problem is to
pre-empt them. If you are starting out with a nice
new mite-free coop then stay on top of things, with regular
cleaning and an ongoing mite prevention strategy then you
aren't going to have this problem!
We recommend applying some mite powder to your hens, around
the vent and under the wings before you put them inside. You should
also apply a light dusting to the inside of your coop, pay particular
attention to the corners.
The Signs of Red Mite
Grey to red mites up to 0.7mm
Infestations around perch ends & cracks
Anaemia and death in young chickens
General loss of condition and restlessness - especially at
night.
A pale comb and wattle.
Drop in egg production or your birds stop laying altogether.
