Mites!

[Oceangirl]

I've seen many posts on mites in this forum, but would like to share an incident from yesterday. My husband built a purple martin house this year that has four openings. Unfortunately, it does not have a telescoping pole, a camera or easy access to get into the house (please no critiques, I know we should have done this and we know better now). Two of those openings have chicks that appear to be almost fully grown. Two of the chicks have been positioned with their heads outside the hole on one side, and at least one has been doing it on the other side. We also noticed an egg on the ground about a week ago.

Yesterday, one of the chicks was positioned with his head and two wings outside of the hole where their was no access to the cavity. The adult martins were flying around the house, but couldn't do anything about it. We waited for awhile and the chick turned about to where his back half was outside of the nest, but the hole was still blocked from entry. My husband removed the fledgling and placed it back in the hole. He looked inside the house and it was infested with mites, both outside and inside.

I've read some information about replacing the nesting material; however, the way the house is constructed, it would be very difficult because he would have to disconnect the pole to gain access to the house by removing the roof. Since the purple martins seem very close to full grown, what should we do? Unfortunately, since we do not have a camera, we do not know when the eggs were hatched; therefore do not know the ages of the babies. The one that was almost completely out of the house appeared almost fully feathered with wings.

Also, on the side where he replaced the fledgling back in the hole, we never saw the parents come back last night; however, this morning we did see the parents return to feed on several occasions.

Questions: (and we do know that next year if we put up a house, we need to make it more easily accessible!)
1. What should we do about the mites situation since the one we saw appeared almost ready to leave the nest?
2. When the babies are almost fully grown, do the parents still sleep in the nest with them, or do they only return to feed?
3. How do purple martins clean themselves? We've never seen them bathe like other birds in water.
4. We've had alot of rain this spring/summer, does that encourage the mite population to take over? Last year, we didn't have much of a mite issue with our colony. There were a few that my husband noticed when he took down the house, but we had a successful year.
5. Other than house modifications, how do we avoid the mites next year? The mites are so heavy, on the outside bottom of the house in the corners it almost looked like mold from a distance, but when you looked up close you could tell it was mites. It was too dark to see the inside, but you could see many crawling on the landing area. I've attached a picture of the outside bottom of the house.

PM House Mites.jpeg (27.39 KiB) Viewed 70 times

I know this mite subject has been on the forum, but would really appreciate your help with our current situation!

[h2y]

ASAP, use & do what Bird Brain recently wrote, Permethrin Poultry Dust Works.... BB recommends 1/2 a teaspoon but with the heavy infestation & your babies being feathered, not pinkies, I personally would put a full teaspoonful just inside the entrance holes & let the birds scatter it about. Later, when you have time, read chuckspurplemartinpage.com about Pesticides, at least.

[Oceangirl]

ASAP, use & do what Bird Brain recently wrote, Permethrin Poultry Dust Works.... BB recommends 1/2 a teaspoon but with the heavy infestation & your babies being feathered, not pinkies, I personally would put a full teaspoonful just inside the entrance holes & let the birds scatter it about. Later, when you have time, read chuckspurplemartinpage.com about Pesticides, at least.

Thanks so very much! We will get the Permethrin and try that. Right now we are expecting heavy rains over the next few days, so we will have to do it when the rain stops. Thanks so for the information about Chuck's page and pesticides, I will read it. We are very inexperienced landlords. We had a purple martin house in our first home back around 1995, and haven't had one since then until last year. There is so much to know.

Question: we have red hawks in the area that have landed on our roof and on the purple martin house and I noticed that you feed crows for hawk control. What do you feed the crows? We have so many crows in our area, I'm not sure I want to encourage any more!

[h2y]

We feed whole & cracked corn (primarily for geese, ducks & deer but the crows eat it too) and black oil sunflower seeds for the crows & all sorts of songbirds.
Red shouldered hawks don't come near our house or PM houses but are plentiful in the pastures. Never seen them chase PMs, they seem too big & slow but they hunt in pairs, ambushing prey. Cooper hawks are the biggest threat, they are stealth, PMs are no match for them. Only seen 2 of the Great Black Hawks here...they are more of a coastal bird, we are 100 miles inland.
Yes, Chuck's page (actually alot of pages) is the PM Bible for me. He's a very studious, experienced PM landlord. I don't know if he posts on here but it's a shame if he doesn't.
Good luck with killing the mites.

[Oceangirl]

We feed whole & cracked corn (primarily for geese, ducks & deer but the crows eat it too) and black oil sunflower seeds for the crows & all sorts of songbirds.
Red shouldered hawks don't come near our house or PM houses but are plentiful in the pastures. Never seen them chase PMs, they seem too big & slow but they hunt in pairs, ambushing prey. Cooper hawks are the biggest threat, they are stealth, PMs are no match for them. Only seen 2 of the Great Black Hawks here...they are more of a coastal bird, we are 100 miles inland.
Yes, Chuck's page (actually alot of pages) is the PM Bible for me. He's a very studious, experienced PM landlord. I don't know if he posts on here but it's a shame if he doesn't.
Good luck with killing the mites.

Thanks for the feeding tips on the crows. I think crows like to eat baby cottontail bunnies. We had 3 of the cutest baby bunnies and one day we went out and found them torn apart. On the roof next door, there was about 8-19 crows just looking down at us. I don't know if it was the crows that killed the bunnies, or if they were just after the "remnants". And I just love the little cottontails - they are so adorable. We are only 50 miles from the coast; however, I'm not real familiar with the various types of hawks in our area. I do know there is another predatory bird (not sure what it is), but I see the purple martins chasing it in the air. I just finished Chuck's page on pesticides - wow, lots of info. Seems he is a fan of sprinkling Sevin dust. Do you have any idea why the permethrin poultry dust would be a better option than the Sevin dust? I think one side of our colony may have slightly younger birds than the other side. One side seems (I would guestimate - maybe a week from leaving the nest?).

[h2y]

The active ingredient in the old Sevin dust, when Chuck wrote the page, was carbaryl, which has been banned by the EPA. Now, the active ingredient is .1% Bifenthrin, which experienced hosts on here have written it is not effective so I haven't used it. This year, I used the last of the carbaryl I had so I'm watching this dust discussion closely. The active ingredient in BB's is .25% permethrin, so any brand that has that is the same. I did have to treat the last 3 of my houses with Tempo, who makes good products but evidently not widely used for PMs as I don't see much opinion on it.

Regarding your bunnies, that's sad. Yes, could be the opportunistic crows, but they also scavenge so who knows. Could have been a coon, skunk, etc. Only thing you can rule out is a snake, he would have swallowed them whole. Hopefully, you have foolproof snake/predator guards that can foil a 6'+ chicken snake?

[MJM]

Seven and other commercial insecticides could be too strong and burn your birds (different people have different rates of success). I personally prefer using "poultry dust" as it offers a safer alternative, can be applied directly on animals and it is designed specifically for mites. There are many brands, and all farm stores that support chickens carry it (Tractor Supply, Rural King, etc).

[Oceangirl]

The active ingredient in the old Sevin dust, when Chuck wrote the page, was carbaryl, which has been banned by the EPA. Now, the active ingredient is .1% Bifenthrin, which experienced hosts on here have written it is not effective so I haven't used it. This year, I used the last of the carbaryl I had so I'm watching this dust discussion closely. The active ingredient in BB's is .25% permethrin, so any brand that has that is the same. I did have to treat the last 3 of my houses with Tempo, who makes good products but evidently not widely used for PMs as I don't see much opinion on it.

Regarding your bunnies, that's sad. Yes, could be the opportunistic crows, but they also scavenge so who knows. Could have been a coon, skunk, etc. Only thing you can rule out is a snake, he would have swallowed them whole. Hopefully, you have foolproof snake/predator guards that can foil a 6'+ chicken snake?

I did not know that ! I guess Chuck didn't update his page to reflect this. I called a local feed store and they do have the Permethrin poultry dust, so I will get some of that. We don't have a snake guard. We've seen some rat snakes around, found one on our back patio just a few days ago. We used some mesh for a guard last year; I know we should have put up one this year but hubby was really busy at the time he built the house this year, so we haven't been as diligent as we should have been as PM landlords :(

[Oceangirl]

Seven and other commercial insecticides could be too strong and burn your birds (different people have different rates of success). I personally prefer using "poultry dust" as it offers a safer alternative, can be applied directly on animals and it is designed specifically for mites. There are many brands, and all farm stores that support chickens carry it (Tractor Supply, Rural King, etc).

Thank you! I am going to purchase some poultry dust! Hopefully this afternoon if our storms let up. We have a feed store a few miles from us that carries it. I don't know if we will be able to put it in the house while it is still raining as we will have to use a ladder and the ground is really wet. We don't have a pole we can raise or lower (unfortunately).

[h2y]

Well, we all rely on luck sometimes, and hopefully your's will hold out the rest of the season before a snake climbs your pole. FYI, I nest 15' poles to 9' to the bottom of the PM houses for strength (& easier access). PMs don't care. Attached pic of simple AC duct pipe guards for next year, if interested? Rat/chicken snakes tore our colony up in 2021 (inferior guards) so had to do something.