Some of you may have read in the ‘Ask Trev’ section some tips I gave long-time reader Maddy in regards to caring for her new chickens.  Some of these tips revolved around stopping her chickens getting mites.

Well it shows that one must have constant vigilance as I had not recently enacted some of my own advice and two of my chickens got infested with mites.  This combined with a 45+ degree day lead to the demise of one of our dear chookies.

Since then I have been on the mite-attack!  Getting rid of them and making sure they do not return.  So today’s advice is on how to get rid of mites once you have them and how to do it without resorting to harmful chemicals.  Everything you need you can make at home the permaculture way!

 

Getting rid of the mites

Step 1: Cleaning the coops

Get rid of all straw and bedding.  Then spray the coops out with White Oil thereby suffocating the mites.  I make this in the following way:

• 2 cups of vegetable oil
• Half a cup of dishwashing liquid

Simply pour these into a sealable jar and give them a good shake!  The resulting liquid should indeed be white.  Now add 10ml of your elixir to one liter of water in a spray bottle, shake again and spray out your coops, killing the mites.  Note, I also use method to get rids of the aphids that occasionally infest my curry tree.  Now replace their bedding with fresh straw and you are set to go!

 

Step 2: Cleaning your chickens

Mites can show up in different ways on your chooks.  On my Frizzles they turn up on their bellies and the backs of their heads.  Only about half my chickens developed these symptoms but after losing a chook I decided to treat my entire flock.   I do this making up some Garlic Juice Spray.  For this you need:

• 30ml of garlic juice
• 300ml of water
• 1 teaspoon of lavender oil

Now garlic juice can be hard to come by and what I found works just as well is to dump a bunch of juicy crushed garlic into your mixture then put it through a strainer before you pour it into your spray bottle.  Mix up the above ingredients, give it a good shake and then spray directly onto your chickens, avoiding their faces as best you can.  Spray your chickens all over, paying special attention to the backs of their head, their bellies and under their wings.  For chickens with no symptoms just a light spray should suffice. For my chook who did survive the hot day but was showing mite symptoms, we sprayed her until she dripped and smelled like an Italian restaurant!

What you can also do is provide an Ash Bath.

Some people actually recommend rubbing your chickens down with ash but I find this works just as well.  Make a little hollow in the dirt somewhere in your chook yard and fill it with ash from  your fire (if you don’t have a fire, just watch the news for arson reports then do a quick drive by with a bucket and spade).  The chickens will pop themselves in of their own accord and ruffle their feathers, giving themselves a little coating of ash which drives away mites.  Note your chooks probably do this anyway in the dirt and dust, but ash is much more effective at getting rid of the creepy crawlies.  If you keep your ash bath topped up the chooks will use it as needed.

 

Keeping the mites away

Now that you’ve treated your coop and your chickens you want to stop the mites coming back and here is how:

Step One: Your coops

• Gather up a few fistfuls of fresh wormwood plant and throw them into your coops amongst their bedding and laying boxes. This should drive away any mites that may have survived your white oil purge. If you suspect they may be returning, change their straw and give a white oil spray to the coops.

 

Step Two: Your chickens

• Drop a couple of cloves of garlic into their water and replace when necessary. Live by this saying: A bit of garlic a day keeps the mites away.

 

And that’s pretty much it.  But I must stress vigilance.  I had been doing the ‘garlic in the water’ and ‘wormwood in their nests’ thing for the past year and had nary a problem.  Due to being so busy around the farm keeping everything alive in summer I had become lax and as a result I learned my lesson the hard way by losing one of our dear chookies; it’s a lesson I don’t wish to learn a second time.

 

Got any permaculture tips for treating mites in chickens you would like to add?  Would love to read them in the comments section below!