The Hen House Gang

My worst ever fears were realised last week,that my hen house is seriously infected for the FIRST time ever with the dreaded ´RED MITE´.

I´ve been keeping poultry for nigh on 6 - 7 years and alway´s been scrupulous with my weekly cleaning regime as well as keeping the birds in as fine a fettle as possible.

They are regularly wormed with Flubenvet and de-loused with a suitable poultry de-louser and have a daily dose of garlic powder added to their layer´s meal each morning for breakfast.....lice I can deal with from time to time...BUT this is EVERY poultry keeper´s VERY WORST NIGHTMARE ,as they are almost impossible to exterminate completely.

My first realisation that something was amiss was a couple of weekends ago,when I went into the hen house first thing to let them all out and open up their shutters......my hands were covered in tiny crawling bugs and I then saw clump´s of them on the shutters on the darkest side.

Armed with a insecticide gun...I went in and sprayed the whole lot and everywhere where I thought the things would be lurking...at the time,I didn´t realise what they were UNTIL on mucking out day (Wednesday mornings) I came upon the nests and there were hundred of thousands of Red bugs writhing in mass clusters in the nook´s,crannies and down the side´s of nesting boxes.

It then dawned on me what it was and I decided to go online and look up more on these things as well as find a way to eliminate the blighters......little did I realise what a battle I was to face.

I went out and bought some Anti Red Mite powder for the hens,to dust them over with last Friday evening and bought a HUGE can of Jeyes Fluid (as recommended by fellow poultry keepers)...dressed from head to toe in a disposable all enclosed paper suit and ´gynae´y´ glove´s,plus a face mask (I resembled somebody from DEFRA last Friday and was glad that my neighbours were away and couldn´t see me)......I began the task of removing to burn all the bedding from the hen house and my other half took down an old perching shelf (underwhich MORE
nest´s and Mites emerged YUK!).

I began to sweep down the cobwebs and realised as more nests emerged that my sweeping was just moving them around further and me getting more and more covered.......so out came the hose pipe and I blasted the whole house,trying to wash out what clusters I could.....then came the Jeyes Fluid treatment....they don´t like that stuff apparently BUT they are TOUGH little cookies and can survive MOST deteregents and hardcore disinfectants.

The whole hen house was awash and it took me most of the day......afterwards,I stripped off my alive protective clothing and dumped it all in the incinerator ready to burn that night......I had another shower and hairwash and YES.....some of the little suckers had found their way onto me through all that gear......I´ve been finding at least 1 - 6 everyday on me for the last week or so.......they are NOT nice I can assure you.

The hen´s were treated with the stuff that supposedly last´s up to 6 weeks.....they are going to be done again in 5 weeks because the RED MITES ARE STILL THERE.....not as bad but bad enough that I´m still finding them on me and can see them on the odd surface in the hen house.

Basically,the whole house should be stripped out,including the roofing felt taken off the roof and burnt and a new roof added.....they get everywhere and live for 7 days.....they breed every 3 - 4 days,feed of the roosting birds at nightime (as they are nocturnal) and can produce 1,000 of egg´s at any one time........they are about the size of a full stop and are black to dark grey in colour when not fed and red and full of blood when they have fed....they have a protective shell which they can harden when then feel threatened or are being treated with a solution and they will hide so as to escape being killed.

Red Mites will wait in the grass and any surrounding area for up to 36 weeks UNTIL they feel it´s safe to return back the coop....this is why they are so hard to treat and eradicate.

Today,I have painstakingly trawlled through the internet looking for a 100% guaranteed destructive method....the good old fashioned one is annoyingly very hard to find and that is good OLD FASHIONED CREOSOTE which is now banned (has been for about 10 years) and I´m asking around but nobody has come up with any yet!...this is very powerful and WILL KILL Red Mite.

I have ordered two form´s of preperations....one that is a gentle approach to tackling them and the other that is a very powerful insecticide and sworn by by other poultry keepers.....it´s this one that I shall use first,then wait a bit and follow up with the gentler one.

I also need to get some Spot on for the hen´s.....apparently the ´Frontline Spray´ that is used on cats is recommended for hens,one squirt under each wing and around the bum area work´s a treat and will kill any lice,mite or flea,etc.......they are also on extra Garlic powder and Mite´s hate Garlic......thankfully my hens don´t mind it (LOL).

Thank´s to the Red Mites my egg yield has totally stopped for now,which I´m most displeased about and this is costing me a fortune in products and causing a great inconvenience,with me today having found some bloody Mite´s on my tools and mucking out equipment in MY BASEMENT....they´ve obviously been brought in from when the items were used in the hen house...so I had more Jeye´s to do and smell permanently of the stuff now.....good job I don´t mind the smell isn´t it ??.

All this cost and agro could have been prevented IF they hadn´t have banned CREOSOTE......the substitute simply won´t work and is a waste of time and money,which is why I haven´t bothered getting any......so if anybody know´s where I can get some,please don´t hesitate to tell me as short of burning my whole hen house down,I really need to get this sorted because I for one am fed up with being covered in mite´s and it´s beginning to get horrible setting foot into the hen house area now.

OH and......Red Mite´s don´t live on humans,they can bite but so far I´ve not had one do that NOR allowed them to be given the chance,but they are horrible and tickle as they crawl over you and it´s a bit like Nits.....you begin to feel that you are itching and looking for thing´s that are sometime´s there or more often are actually not........maybe I need Frontlining too (LOL).

It´s been a hard year for us hen´s so far.........with a great loss of some of our fellow housemates,following a period of respiratory infections and a hard annual moult.
Sadly,the combination of both,has claimed the live´s of alot of the older girl´s and it´s just us hardy bunch left now.....hopefully the worst is now over,finally.

But last night,our mum had an unexepected newcomer turn up at the front door in a cat basket,in a form of a Light Sussex cross hen.
Apparently,she had to be rehomed as she was bullying other hen´s in her old hen house,so mum said that she would take her on and that any naughtiness,us lot would soon put her in her place,but she seem´s to have settled in ok and adjusted to the fact that a pecking order,exists ONLY if you misbehave,otherwise we are all a friendly bunch and have no time for trouble makers.

Let´s just hope that she rewards mum with some lovely eggs,as us lot are still very slack on that front due to the recent problems,but we will come back to form as soon as we can and as soon as we have some warmer weather and sunnier days.

My you are clever girls laying all those great eggs !!!

Hi Gang Its ok this fox always comes to the garden we are very safe in our house and mum also feeds him so theirs no need for him to go for us.
Love
Us Girls

Hi Gang Guess what we done last night?? The fox that visits mums garden every night was sniffing around our house so we all made lots of noise and he run away scared so thats 1-0 to us HEHEHE.
Love
Us Girls

Hi Gang Thanks for your message its been lovely and sunny here today we have all been sun bathing! You lot are all cute mum says she would love some like you but she doesn't feel she has the room for anymore. Mum loves us alot dad says she spoils us but we don't think so.
Anyway keep laying
Love
Beyonce/Bananarama & Girls Aloud

Hi Hen House Gang Us girls just wanted to say hi mum is getting dad to build us a big new house and run so in the mean time we are still in our large house but have a smaller run, but when mum's out in the garden we have the run of the whole garden she just has to keep an eye on us because the garden fencing also needs to be redone.
Keep Laying
Beyonce/Bananarama & Girls Aloud