Feeding advice for bantams (one broody, one moulting)

[Isobel]

Could I ask for some advice from anyone out there who has had to deal with the dreaded problem of mites please?

 

I recently took in three new chickens and for the first time three weeks later my Eglu is infested and so are the hens (and so am I after I have handled them!). I have three other chickens that I have had for over a year and have never had a problem with this before. I have sprayed the interior last week (I might as well not have bothered!!) and have pressure jetted it and scrubbed it with disinfectant today. The chickens are excluded from it at the moment while it dries and then I will re-spray it before I let them back in tomorrow.

 

I have the sort of Eglu that has wooden bars. Could this be part of the problem? If I were to get a new one with entirely plastic bars would that be a major step forward in controlling these horrid bugs? Or can they live just as happily in plastic crevices as wooden ones?

 

I am about to look for a new chicken house as I need more space but was going to get a traditional wooden one. The instructions for cleaning these fill me with dread!! The advice is to loosen all the screws that hold it together when you clean it so that you can get into the cracks, and to lift the roofing felt to get any bugs living between the roof covering and roof structure - virtually dismantling it every time you clean it seems like jolly hard work!

 

Does anyone else have a way to eradicate mites and then successfully keep them away in a wooden chicken house, or is it a constant round of attack before you are attacked? Do the all-plastic eglus make a difference to this?

 

Thanks for any advice!!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Poor you, that's such bad luck . It's not unheard of in an eglu (in fact someone has the same problem in a cube here).

 

This FAQ also gives some advice you may find useful.

 

The plastic roosting bars are definitely a good idea - I'm not sure if you're talking about a new eglu or just bars but I would say just new bars would make a difference.

[Redwing]

The mites have a breeding cycle which you will need to break by spraying with Poultry Sheild or using Diatom (or both) every few days. If you leave it a week between treatments they will get the upper hand, make sure you get right in the cracks between where the bottom and front join as those are prime spots

 

Cleaning a wooden house is not that bad but you do need to make sure that spray or powder gets in the cracks, I doubt that most owners go to the lengths that have been recomended to you

 

You can treat the inside of the coop with a paint that gets in the cracks such as gloss paint. creosote substitute is good for repelling mites though so I used that in my wooden houses

 

Siliconing the cracks wll help if yo can be bothered!

 

Exchanging the wooden bars in the Eglu may help but I recently got red mite in one of my Eglus and mine has plastic bars so its not foolproof

[Sheilaz]

Fear not! Plastic bars will make a tremendous difference!

 

Having all plastic really can prevent an infestation, and although a few mites may appear, they can easily be eradicated. (The above quoted problem arose with lino & paper & infrequent checking; a bare Eglu has very little in the way of mite crevices)

 

I sprinkle Diatom in the Cube preventatively after cleaning and haven't had a single mite this year. Last year a few had started up but regular checking ensured it wasn't a problem.

 

The previous 2 years I had wooden bars & struggled all summer.

 

Plastic & Diatom = easy peasy!

[Isobel]

Thank you for all that advice. Just now I was looking at alternative housing and for 6 chickens the cube looks good (but a bit expensive!!) if it has plastic bars (I assume it does these days).

 

I have duly noted the advice about ways to protect a wooden one...I will weigh it all up and count my pennies and see which way the cookie crumbles - I think I have been a bit complacent about bugs and should have been doing something preventative! I have ordered all the powders and sprays including leg-scaly-thingy spray now and will pay more attention in future.

[Chook n Boo Mum]

I was recommended the other day to burn a sulphur candle (? like you would use in a greenhouse?) in the coop to see off red mite...no idea if it works, the lad in the garden centre said his parents did it every year & found it work against the dreaded bugs.

 

Sha x

[Redwing]

It does work really well apparently but you need somewhere else to keep the girls elsewhere overnight

[ubereglu]

With my eglu I give it a complete scrub out every week with soapy water and a sponge and pour water through where the base joins. Their nesting material is also changed weekly and I always remove their droppings from the eglu tray every morning.

 

Currently the chickens get louse powdered on a weekly basis and when I clean is I take it completely apart, removing everything to allow UV rays to enter it as the rays kill off mites. I've never had red mite, (Am hoping I never will ) both when I've had my eglu and my wooden house thankfully-the wooden house didn't have roofing felt though, (this can harbour mites) and instead it had a treated timber roof with a sheet of roofing steel on top.