Liquid Seven

[DAVE]

Art! No I don't have a chest freezer but I do have a well ventilated shed. One of my friends who has had Martins for years puts his housing in a lean-too type shed over the winter and he doesn't have Mite problems. Yes it doe's get real cold here. I store mine in my Garage which never freezes. So after the season is over I am going to soak them in Clorox and hang them in my shed for the Winter. I also will put Seven Dust in them also. I think I'm not soaking them right. I have 18 Gourds and soak them all in the same 30 gallon tub. I am going to do 3 then change the solution. Maybe the Clorox water gets to weak. It's been a real Battle this season but my Grand-Pap always told me DON'T LET ANY BUG GET YOU DOWN.
Had a nest check today of my 2 remaining nest of young and all is well. I was worried about one with 5 in it . First the ASY Male is feeding them by himself because something happened to the Female and it's been in the 100's for the past 5 Days. The chicks are only 12 days old. So finally some good luck.

Thanks too all Dave

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Dave, I think that you may be considering the wrong thing about killing the mites. It really does not matter if you kill them (all of them), they can again quickly become a problem when any bird lands on the housing. Mites are on most birds, they crawl off the bird and onto the housing. So it does not matter if you kill all of the old mites, new mites can quickly emerge again.

Mites have been reported when the gourds were outside in Pennsylvania all winter, they do not necessarily freeze. Either they do not freeze or they were quickly contaminated again.

My opinion is that you simply want to keep mites from becoming a problem. We know that some mites will be present, so we simply want to control the number of mites.

If you think that Clorox in the fall will stop mites during the next season, then I think that you may be making a wrong assumption...

However, we all have our own opinions, so do what you wish...I hope that this explanation helps.

[John Miller]

Emil is right from what I read of mite life cycle online. They only live a few weeks so maybe don't even survive the winter at all in old nests, but hot and dry would kill them more quickly than freezing. But this is not a recommendation to bring the gourds inside..the "bird" mites I read do migrate out of a gourd when the birds leave, and will bite humans (and cause itching) if one is their paths, but just to test bite..they can't live on humans and need and search out bird blood to reproduce. that's enough John... scratch, scratch.

[DAVE]

Thanks Guy's! Maybe I'm just a little paranoid because of the amount of trouble I have had this Year. I didn't know that the mites had that short of life span. I think I will just clean the Gourds with Clorox water, clean and repair if needed and store in the Garage. Keeping them in the cold is hard on the Gourd Paint.
But really I have had a very good year. 103 eggs, 92 Fledged so far with 8 more yet to Fledge. That is Poppa can keep up this pace feeding 5 young.
Thanks again Dave