29/04/2026
Red Mite Outbreak?
What to use? This is the million dollar question.
Options are many and varied from Detergents, Essential oil sprays, high foaming detergents, alkaline builders, sequestrates and also containing QAC ( Quaternary Ammonium Compounds ). All have effects of some sort or another whether on the bird or in the environment but some are worse than others if you care to look up possible side effects of long term exposure to some chemicals.
Some harsh chemical formulations encourage resistance to form over time meaning the compound you used with great success last year, laughs at you this year.
Red mites (Dermanysus gallinae) are clever chaps. They know where their bread is buttered and its not out fending in the wilds on their own. They LOVE a nice warm coop with a buffet of birds lined up after darkness arrives just ripe for the feasting.
Wild birds carry Red Mites and we have found infested nests when cleaning out sheds. How do they cope? Dust bathing and puddle bathing mostly.
Naturally effective products have been championed more by necessity at times vs choice. We all want something to just spray and walk away with our busy lives and that's great when you can get away with it year after year, but unfortunately, that is not how the clever Red Mite works.
Management and Prevention is the key here and unfortunately that takes effort on our part if we want to keep chickens in a house of some sort. I know that is not what we all want to hear and it will be a while yet before AI robots can be sent into the coop to sort out the problems unfortunately although that would be super useful!
The scenario runs like this often....
1. Get all keen on having chooks
2. Sort out purchasing said chooks because lets face it, that the fun bit!
3. Work out how much you can afford to spend on a coop.
4. Purchase a cheap slatted version from online or via a hardware outfit that severely overestimates the number of chickens that can be kept in it and provides a perfect environment for Red Mite population explosions with its overlapping wood slats or similar.
5. Red mite explosions occur due to poor construction providing a gold standard of mite hide outs to proliferate, birds are too tightly packed in the housing which leads to overheating, crowding and stress and then have no place to dust bathe or help themselves.
6. Birds die or become sick/anaemic as the populations of red mites increase. Egg laying has already reduced or stopped.
7. Best way forward - pull hair out, vow to never keep poultry again as this really decreases the joy levels, remove birds, burn coop
8. Be forced to think about a better setup to stop the explosions occurring again.
Management points to consider for a successful setup
1. Room for each bird of 1m cubed at least including coop and run area. They need to have space!
2. A coop designed without multiple wood joinery points. The worst places are near the birds when they are stationary eg perch rails, nest boxes. The mites like easy access so you will always find colonies near the end of the perch rails if they are present. Plastic houses are not immune. Yes, they are easier to possibly dismantle and clean if you do find mites but they still are fair game for your Red Mites. We have tried wood, PVC, plastic, natural branches. Mites walk along them all quite happily. They can also move a good distance at night relative to their size. Coop empty of birds for a year? No problem, the eggs detect heat when new hens arrive and hatch out in response.
3. Use a mite indicator tool - We make these to attach at the end of the perch rail in your coop (underneath the rail). The mites love a tight wee space to live and breed so this is often your first indicator of a problem starting. ( www.thechookshed.co.nz )
Why? The Mites generally don't live on your birds and come out at night from the nest, crawl under the perch rail and up onto your hens for a midnight snack. This is why, when it suits you to look at your hens during the day, you don't see any problem until its really bad or the hens look sick, or one dies ( usually the hen that perches near the end of the perch rail )
Night Watch - go out once a week after dark with a head lamp and look closely at your hens. Are they fidgety and unsettled? Can you see mites moving along the perch rails? Run your finger under the rail and see if you have mites there.
This gives you a heads up before you get to a full blown evacuation stage and you have a chance to rein things in and curb the effects of an outbreak.
Want a product that works to 'repel ' Red Mites?
Koop M8 Spray oil + Essential oils. Does it kill the adults and inhibit eggs? We can't say this due to MPI regulations but you can find that out for yourself easily enough without us spilling the beans.
Koop M8 Oil - Essentially Biodiesel. Recycled Rapeseed oil passed through a trans-esterification process resulting in FAME. Fatty acid methylized Esters and Glycerol. Nil HSNO rating with testing related to human effects. Only a watch if enters waterways for fish as with all oils. We have added in some Essential oils to create the Koop M8 Oil mix. The essential oils added have in scientific testing, shown to act as deterrents in their own rights to pests but on a low level.
We have used this for over 10 years now, with constant fabulous results. No resistance ( we also couple with our Koop M8 powder mix for a residual deterrent effect - MPI approval for mechanical only effect ) and its works really well. Just look at the pictures of our hens! Happy healthy and produce lovely eggs which we eat.
We are all about low residues for us, our birds and the environment. We eat the eggs so don't want anything nasty around our birds. We also want something that works, time after time.
If you have an issue, jump on the website and have a look at the products available. You will be glad you did!
