Just found a few small red mites on my girls...thoroughly dusted them all with DE, rubbed it into their feathers etc....One girl seems sick & lethargic, I have seperated her for now in the hospital coop.Here are the questions:How do I get rid of the mites WITHOUT harsh insecticides like sevin?Can they pick these up from wild birds...;ately we have had alot of wild birds hanging oout in the free range area?Could her lethargy be from a mite problem? How to treat?Thanks in advance for the advice.ugghh ...I hate bugs
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Also put some DE in the nest boxes, that way you know they will come in contact with it. Since you know you have mites, I would clean out ALL of the litter and dust and replace with clean litter. The mites would have to be pretty bad for your sickly girl to be acting strange from them, so I'm not sure if that's related or not. I would get a litter box full of sand/dirt and DE for a dustbathing box in the coop right away.
You might also want to coat their legs with vaseline. I hear that suffocates any mite eggs that might be trying to hatch there. Lots of threads on BYC about it.
Others will chime in on how to treat. Do they have daily access to a dust bathing area either in their coop and/or free-range area? Regular dust bathing is essential to help keep themselves mite-free. You could sprinkle some DE in their dust bathing area.
well, their coop & run is covered in pine bedding & I do dust with DE. I recently cleaned the coop out & went from about 6 inches or litter to about 1-2 inches. I was thinking the other day that they needed a true dust bathing area with sand & dirt.
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You might also want to coat their legs with vaseline. I hear that suffocates any mite eggs that might be trying to hatch there. Lots of threads on BYC about it.