Red Mite Trap

[chrismahon]

I've been doing some experimenting to try and build a red mite trap. First thing I needed was an infested, but empty, coop. During the course of this I've discovered a few things worth sharing.

Red Mite are not attracted to just body heat, contrary to what I have read. Using a heated mat at chicken body temperature, which I covered with sticky fly paper, it attracted almost nothing. There were a few on the paper and a few under the mat. So I tried covering the mat with feathers and that didn't work either. Pheromones must have something to do with it and they are not on moulted feathers. During the course of these trials I wondered if the ants had cleared all the mite from the coop so I had to experiment again with a live chicken. Poor Ollie !!! Which leads me to the second myth debunked.

Red mite don't jump, they only crawl. Despite what someone on another forum insisted based on their 'Google research' red mite must jump to explain what has now happened here three times. I put Ollie on the perch overnight, which I had previously creosoted both ends, in the coop I suspected had no mite in. In the morning about 13,500 (based on a random measurement of several square cms) red mite were trapped on the perch, unable to cross the creosoted ends. My conclusion was they couldn't have crossed the ends to get to her either, they must have jumped from the walls after crawling up above the height of the perch. I tried this again when Ollie recovered and still got about 2000. Same result in another coop which I thought had no mite in it. So my conclusion is they will jump when hungry, but are less inclined to when fed, because despite being caught in the open in daylight they didn't jump off.

I'm now thinking a better way to trap them is using a live chicken, but wrapping the perch ends in fly paper to catch them crawling onto and off the perch -if any jump over the fly paper that is. My concern is the welfare of the chicken though. If 10 were in the coop before and it is baited with one, could she stand the blood loss if all the mite jump?

 

[Marigold]

I wouldn't have thought that just one night's exposure for one hen would cause fatal anaemia, Chris, and presumably the hens would take it in turns to sleep (?) in the coop, but apart from the welfare issues I don't think this regime would rid the coop of the mites either, however many you caught next morning. Surely they would be laying eggs all the time in the nooks and crannies, which would hatch as normal and more than replace any you had caught?
If they were 'trapped on the perch, unable to cross the creosoted ends' as you say, why were they unable to do this if they had managed it in the other direction? I think the fly paper trap sounds a more promising idea, but still this wouldn't eradicate the little beasts. And might the hen tread in the fly paper?
One more thought -could there also be a myth that redmite don't stay on the hen during the day? Maybe Ollie just imported them herself and they crawled off her feathers when the time came to feed. After all, why wouldn't they stay on the hen, burrowed into nice warm feathers, next to a constant source of food?

 

[chrismahon]

I think you are right to some extent about the mite being on the birds Marigold. Got another 100 or so on the perch cleared just yesterday belonging to 4 bantams. But Ollie was ruffled over paper and dusted before she became a 'guinea pig'. So she certainly didn't have many on her -not 2,000 or 13,500.

The point I made about getting onto the perch and not getting off demonstrates that they must jump onto the perch over the creosoted ends, then get stuck. The weather is so hot and dry here (over 30 in the shade) that I can see red mite being able to live quite comfortably in the ground under the runs and be coming in on the birds all the time.

At the moment we have used Dinosaw's idea of ant powder, in moderation, putting it all around the floor edges in an attempt to stop any mites, that drop into the bedding, crawling up into the woodwork. All the perches have creosoted ends and every perch is removed and inspected first thing in the morning. Only the bantams has any more than a few on it- most have none. We tried potash but adult red mite love the stuff and nest in it. However it seems to work on baby red mite. At the moment we have it under control, but even the freshly creosoted coops have mite in them so it will be a constant battle.

 

[dinosaw]

You need to hit every crevice and the perches with the powder for it to eradicate the problem Chris, if you have wooden perches you can rub it into them while wearing a rubber glove.

 

[Marigold]

Personally I would give all the coops a good spray with FicamW. Yes pretty toxic but does the job. Probably no more toxic in the long run than constant messing about with creosote etc,

 

[chrismahon]

Not too sure exactly what steps to take next. I dislike the use of chemicals and they also kill the ants, which are helping solve the problem. If there are red mite in the ground, the ants are the only means of getting to them.

On a positive note the bantam's perch continues to improve. This morning there were only 20 or so red mite. On other perches with creosoted ends there were between 3 and none.

 

[Tim]

Hi Chris,

One thing I found is that if you take a small tube fill it with something like chopped straw and seal the ends, leaving small holes in the ends and tape these to the underside of a perch, the red mite will move in over a few days. Before they had time to reproduce, I would empty the tube out and torch them with the blow torch.

It was cheap and removed several thousand red mite at least over a few weeks but the coop still required other treatments.

The tubes I used used to have predator mites in them but I re-used them for this and you could make the same thing out of water pipe, card and tape, here is a photo which was taken at night with the flash - you can see lots of red mite are active:

 

[chrismahon]

That's a good idea Tim. Wonder if stuffing the tube with a coil of fly paper would save torching it and catch the hatchlings as well?

Just opened a new email. Page 55 of the BHWT's magazine Chicken and Egg describes a similar such a trap. Their use for it is to count the number of red mite to decide if there is a problem that needs treating. I'm going to try to contain the things on the perch so their best option is to go into the trap underneath.