bionic mites?! help with warfare pleeeeease!

[technodoll]

Not a newbie chickenista, I've been through every possible pest infestation with my flocks over the past years and thought I knew how to handle whatever got thrown my way - but this mite infestation is driving me crazy!

Need your fellow expert advice please...

My flock free-ranges, we are in eastern Canada. It's been a very wet summer so far.

There have been nymphs crawling over some of the eggs the past month and no matter what we do, they just keep multiplying. Haven't seen any adult mites yet but where are these newly-hatched ones coming from and why aren't we getting rid of them?

-dusted each hen with carbaryl dust twice (normally once does the trick)
-changed all bedding, rubbed carbaryl dust on all sleeping spots
-cleaned out all nesting areas, put fresh hay, sprinkled with DE
-filled the kiddie pool with fresh peat moss and DE, so the girls could bathe if they wanted to in the coop
-none of that worked, so we dosed each bird with the recommended amount of Eprinex (fresh bottle, not expired) 8 days ago

AND THERE ARE STILL MITES, hundreds of them crawling on about half the eggs

Your thoughts, suggestions, opinions, stories?

I'm about to sob with despair!

 

[technodoll]

bump... anyone?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Are the mites in the above photos the mites that you're worried about? If so the reason that you are unable to rid your chicken facilities of these mites is because they live, hide, breed, and reproduce in the many cracks, crevices, wood joints, and knot holes in your coop. The only thing that works is to deny red mites living space. To do this spray a Permitherin and water mixture at the correct proportions to make a dip for fleas and ticks. Or if your're hardcore mix up enough water and permitherin to make 10 - 15 gallons of dip. While wearing shoulder high gloves dip every feathered bird in the mite dip up to its neck. If you look carefully you'll see two different colored mites. Believe me when i tell you that they are all the same color, only that the red color is from that mite recently feasting on your chickens' blood. If you'll look very very carefully at your birds' skin you'll also notice little black specks often staining your birds skin black. This black skin is from the roost mite excrement.

Mix up an ounce or two of Permithrein in some old or used motor oil and paint the frame, exposed boards, roost poles, and wood joints with this concoction to deny the red or roost mites a breeding place and handy cafeteria to lay around in between meals of chicken blood. Don't be shy with that paint brush, really work this mixture into the wood. Permithrein was first discovered 400 years ago in the form of the dried petals of the flowers in the mum family (marigolds) and Permithrein was used by Napoleon to delouse his army. Just don't go over board and allow any of your mixture to get into your poultrys' airways. You could bring on inhalation pneumonia if you do, but plain water is just as bad.

I hope that this helps you but more so i hope that it helps your poultry.

Because the red or roost mite only visits your hens at night, dust bathing, DE, and all the other treatments are mostly useless and a bad waste of good time and money.

I sometimes wonder if a hen who refuses to lay in her nest is being eaten alive by roost or red mites and that is why she refuses to patronize the nest.

 

[technodoll]

From what I see we have northern chicken mites, not red mites (they live on the bird, we can see them around the vent and they transfer on the eggs in the metal nesting boxes).

Last night at dark I checked the main roosting plank for red mites (paper towel and flashlight test), nothing.

I was told that Eprinex stayed in a chicken's system for 4 weeks, and that it would kill blood-sucking pests - what is the real answer?

So frustrating...