Your experiences with Elector PSP

[Lelilamom]

I am interested in hearing your experiences with Elector PSP. I wanted to share my experience and hopefully others will chime in and help those who come along in the future.
We are in week 3 of battling Northern Fowl Mites. I have been dusting with Garden and Poultry Dust (Permethrin) every third day, cleaning the coop of all bedding and dirt, coating the floor, poop boards, etc with Permethrin dust and DE and mixing both into their sand boxes. As of this morning, two girls still had mites. I had ordered Elector PSP in the hopes that it would come today and it did.
1. I noticed that the elector separates from the water after a few minutes so shaking (as suggested in the instructions) is important.
2. I bought a cheap spray bottle from Walmart. The sprayer broke after 8 birds. I had 41 more to go so I found an empty sprayer I had used for vinegar, washed it out and used that. First lesson: get a good spray bottle.
3. As soon as I started spraying birds, I realized why some folks decide to dip their birds. The liquid ran off the birds and into a puddle on the floor. I had to put the nozzle right to their skin on fine spray mode and, holding them upside down, spray quickly and rub the liquid into their feathers and skin before it ran off and onto the floor. Second Lesson: Have someone hold the bird while you part the feathers and spray very close to where the feather meets the skin.
4. In the end, I sprayed every bird twice, soaking the entire tail, vent and fluffy belly.

Lingering Questions:
How effective is the Elector when sprayed just in one area?
Does it have to touch every square centimeter of skin to kill the mites?
How long does it last? If a mite egg hatches tomorrow, will the larvae die? What about if an egg hatches in three days? Five?
I have about 1/4 gallon left. I put it in a cabinet in the coop. Will it still be good tomorrow morning so I can spray the 9 bantums that were roosting 12 ft up in the rafters tonight?

I greatly appreciate others lending their experiences.

 

[Lelilamom]

My 7 day update. I've been checking the birds every day.
Day 1 still had mites on birds
Day 2, fewer mites and some birds had none.
Day 3 only a few birds had mites
Day 4 only 3 birds plus roosters had one or two mites
Day 5 only two birds had mites
Day 6 one bird had dead mites
Day 7 no birds had mites
Today is day 8. I plan on respraying all birds on day 14.

 

[EdnaAndEdith]

This is so encouraging to read! Thank you for the daily update. I didn’t realize how quickly mites could explode. I’ve never seen anything like it. From the moment I noticed them on one bird I worked immediately to get supplies to battle them.

Permethrin dust and DE are a total joke. The mites literally walked through them laughing at me the whole way. Not to mention how incredibly terrible the application of these products are.

I decided to go with something systemic because I’m vegan and don’t eat the eggs anyway and that way any mite that fed on them would die (in theory).

Last night I used cat bravecto topically applied (0.05ml per bird) to the back of their neck on their skin. I was hoping by this morning the mites would be dying so I could start treating the coop and only have to spray the birds that were infested more severely. But this morning all birds treated with Bravecto still were unbelievably infested. I treated both barns, removed all shavings, sprayed permethrin yard and kennel spray on every crack crevice and surface. I took the more friendly birds I have and dunked them half way under in a bucket of Elector. That did seem to kill many of the mites. But even after extensive cleaning, spraying, treating the coops, treating the birds with Bravecto, treating some of the birds with elector (not all of the birds will let me touch and handle them), I’m STILL seeing live mites!!! I’ve never felt so defeated. It’s good to know there’s hope that they will continue to die over the next few days. I planned to retreat the coops/barns and the birds with either Revolution or Bravcto again in a week.

I also have a load of sand coming because I’m not going to replace the shavings. I figured at least sand I could torch with a flame thrower and kill anything if there was a future incident. Not to mention I’m not happy with deep litter in my situation.

Has anyone used Bravecto topically? Will this kill the mites? Should I treat with Revolution in one week? Sooner? Any other suggestions?

 

[SourRoses]

I'm really happy with our recent use of Elector PSP for mites. There's a guy in a local group who sells the small bottles for $25.

Like you, I had trouble with my spray bottle. It didn't stop working but it was difficult and prone to getting stuck. TSC has nice ZEP spray bottles in the horse fly spray area, I think I'll get one of those to have on hand for any future treatments.
My mom held the birds and I used one hand to fluff the feathers back, put the nozzle in close to the skin and then did a separate patch for each spray until most of their back was treated. I wondered if all the skin needed treatment too, but the lady I saw using it on youtube didn't cover the whole bird. Anyway, I haven't seen any lice since! And we still have some concentrate left over.

 

[SourRoses]

I decided to go with something systemic because I’m vegan and don’t eat the eggs anyway and that way any mite that fed on them would die (in theory).

I can't help but be curious... what's wrong with eating your own chickens eggs? It can't be a moral issue since you surely treat them well... or am I missing something?

 

[EdnaAndEdith]

I can't help but be curious... what's wrong with eating your own chickens eggs? It can't be a moral issue since you surely treat them well... or am I missing something?

Great question!

If I ever eat an egg, I would only eat it from my own flock for that very reason. I (maybe) eat three or four eggs a year at most.

Reasons are: I don’t love the taste -I can really take it or leave it, they aren’t the healthiest IMO - I recognize there’s debate about this, and I don’t NEED them to live a healthy and fulfilled life. My husband eats them sometimes and I have friends we give eggs to, some of our friends supplement their dogs food with them, and I’ll cook them up and feed back to the flock too but for me it isn’t an ethical thing so much for me with my own flock. You are correct. However many of the hens in my flock are rescues from the commercial egg industry and something in the back of my mind says they have been exploited enough in their sad, short little lives so I tend to choose not to eat eggs just for the thought of what they have been through in the past.

Now, that said, I wouldn’t eat an occasional egg or egg containing product unless they were from my own because of the lack of humane conditions in commercial production (and even in some households).

Thanks for asking!