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Mites Mites everywhere and not an end in sight

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m137b
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Post by mouselover01 Sun Jul 29, 2012 1:27 pm

So since the import we have had mites here. I've been treating non-stop 1-2 times per week.

Each of my mice get sprayed with iver-on spray once a week
2x a week Each of my tubs/cages gets sprayed with Permethrin spray
Then each tub gets Food Grade DE and finally the pine pellets.
I shake it around to evenly coat everything.

Once a day--or sometimes every other day, I go with the Permethrin spray and spray the outside of the tubs and the shelf they are on, and the surrounding areas including the floor.


The problem is, I have about 1000 square foot.

There are NO mites on my mice or in their cages! The Mice I have still in 'QT' from the import are still in my room and do not have mites.


I notice MILLIONS of little white dots walking around on every surface I have not sprayed.

I brought down a bag of bedding the other day. Yesterday I went to pour it in the bin and the bag of bedding (the outside) was covered in millions and millions of tiny little bugs that crawled up my arms when I picked the bag up!---- YUCK.

Stina has given me a suggestion on a spray that might help that I can spray my whole basement with.

Until I get that spray in, I'm supposed to be taking everything out of the basement today (if my boyfriend feels better before it gets too late), washing every cage outside, treating AGAIN, and am going to BLEACH the floor and walls with diluted bleach and a mop.

Then when the spray comes, I'll be spraying that everywhere.


Does anyone else have any advice on what to do? I'm at my witts end with all of this and am seriously about to lose it. There are so many mites that it looks like there is a pile of white dust, but really it's mites. I'll have to get a photo. The one area is all dead from me spraying them but it's gross.

Thanks all!
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Post by Love2read Sun Jul 29, 2012 4:50 pm

They sound like grain mites, not regular mites. Check your mouse food. If they're in it then they're definitely grain mites. I used to get them in my mealworm farm all the time and they would get EVERYWHERE. -.- I stopped breeding mealworms because of it.

The best way to get rid of them is to stir up your food and bedding every day. They don't like that and won't stick around long if their "home" is constantly being disturbed.

They won't harm mice. The worse that will happen is that they could eat alot of them and get a little bit of diarrhea(and some extra protein, lol). tongue
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Post by m137b Sun Jul 29, 2012 5:19 pm

Grain mites need humidity to reproduce, I had them briefly on my mealworm colony when our inside humidity was hovering at 85-95% before we turned the air on in the house. As soon as the air when on and the humidity dropped to 55-65% they died out entirely.

Before we turned on the air I was containing them by spraying the ones that left the meal worm bins with ivermectin and that did keep them contained and seemed to kill the ones I sprayed.
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Post by mouselover01 Sun Jul 29, 2012 5:33 pm

You know, after looking into it, that sounds very similar to what most of the mites in the rodent area look like. There are some black mites that look like the tropical rat mites, but then there are millions of these buggers.

All the white in the following pics isn't dirt! It's mites!

Photos:

On the black part of the bedding bag:
Mites Mites everywhere and not an end in sight Baghz



On my bleach spray bottle nearly overnight:
Mites Mites everywhere and not an end in sight Mites

On the bottom of one of my cages
Mites Mites everywhere and not an end in sight Mites2
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Post by candycorn Sun Jul 29, 2012 6:23 pm

Yikes. That would give me nightmares. I would apply food grade diamatatious earth everywhere! You can get it at farm stores. It is harmless to mammels but horrid for all insects. Rub it into every creavice. Google ways to use it. It is cheap and even killed the bedbugs we got three years ago.
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Post by Love2read Sun Jul 29, 2012 6:48 pm

Yup, those are grain mites.

You can mix DE with water and spray it onto things to spread it better. Just make sure to constantly shake up the bottle so the DE doesn't settle to the bottom.

Goo luck getting rid of them! I was about ready to burn my house down the first time I got them! o_O
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Post by mouselover01 Sun Jul 29, 2012 11:38 pm

Thanks!!

Spent the day taking all of my cages and stuff outside to power wash them.

Still working on it and will be at it all day tomorrow.

Already noticeably less mites!

Luckily, this is contained to the basement, so nothing anywhere else, or I'd probably sleep in the car...

Will be DEing everything tomorrow as well!

Thanks guys. Being down there makes me want to cry, but I should enjoy my animals and they're ruining everything!

BTW, I found the heaviest infestation near the mealworms!
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Post by Love2read Mon Jul 30, 2012 12:09 am

Toss the mealworm farm. It's not worth keeping, trust me. :/ I burned mine and I had hundreds of thousands of mealies. *cry*

Also, make sure to go through your kitchen and bag up anything that they might be attracted to, such as bisquick, cereal, oatmeal, chips, flour, etc... They will get into EVERYTHING!

Just an FYI, freezing will not kill mites. Microwaving will though.

I had some success using vaseline to keep mites off of my sugar glider cages. I put it around the legs of the cage stands and they couldn't crawl past it. You have to be liberal with it though, no skimping. tongue You could try putting vaseline around the bases of each of your cages and, hopefully, it will keep out the mites.

I did a quick google search and someone else said to put a 2" band of vaseline around whatever you want the mites away from.

Here's an interested read if you decide to continue raising mealworms: http://www.sugarglider.com/journal/Kazko/Meal_worm_mites_be_gone_671.asp

Hope that helps!
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Post by Mrs. Beach Mon Jul 30, 2012 12:31 am

What will grain mites do to mealies? Why do you have to toss them? Can't you just toss the grain they live in and wash the worms or something? I've heard that to kill aphids all you do is spray soapy water on them because it prevents them from breathing. Can't something as simple be done that would kill the mites but not the mealies?
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Post by Laigaie Wed Aug 01, 2012 7:41 pm

Would you want to wash 1000 mealworms with soapy water? I cannot imagine either how any would survive, given how easily they drown, nor how you could kill all the mites (and it does take killing ALL the mites) without killing all the mealworms. They're both bugs, albeit at very different scales.


Last edited by Laigaie on Wed Aug 01, 2012 7:41 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : mites are arachnids, not insects, but they're both still effectively the same in how to kill them)
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Post by Mrs. Beach Wed Aug 01, 2012 10:54 pm

There must be a scientific way to do it. Peter Parker would know how! Mealies can stand a lot of heat. Perhaps grain mites can't. Heat up the colony and the grain mites die. Or...the oppsite! Put the colony in the refrigerator until all insects are inert, sift out the mealies and toss the mites along with the bedding. Um, then blast the mealies with pressurized air to make sure no mites are on them. Yeah. I just can't see throwing out a colony of 1,000 mealies! Yikes!

Hey, this web site http://www.grainscanada.gc.ca/storage-entrepose/sip-irs/gm-cf-eng.htm says:
"The best way to control an infestation is to turn the binned grain several times, a practice that will kill most of the mites or dry the grain." This just crushes them?

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Post by mouselover01 Thu Aug 02, 2012 1:26 pm

I got rid of the colony. Ive found that the section of the room where I have cleaned everything, sprayed down with Permethrin and DE and cleaned is still doing good and seem mite free.

The other side of the room, near where the Mealworm farm WAS has mites on the empty tanks and on the surface. It was just way too much to do at once.

I cleaned out a bunch of the empty stuff and they've been drying on my lawn for the past 3 days. I didn't want to put them in the garage right away because i didn't want them to migrate over to the chickens and the chicken food.

I am hoping now, with a quick mist of Permethrin that the items outside are mite free and ready to be stored.

Then I can move on to the rest of the stuff in the basement and finally be done with this madness.

Fustrating! I need to re-buy any grain food I burned and make sure I buy tupperwear that actually seals tight. I put DE in some of the food I didn't want to throw away and stirred it and it seemed to do the trick. Food grade DE, from my understanding, is safe for animals to eat and actually has a de-worming affect--or so I was told. No problems yet.

So all in all, so far a success.
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Post by kawmice Fri Aug 03, 2012 4:59 pm

oh my.... I am glad you finally got it under control. so sorry to hear about your mealies though!! Sad That would drive me absolutely insane!
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Post by Mrs. Beach Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:35 am

It seems like m137b has the answer!

m137b wrote:Grain mites need humidity to reproduce, I had them briefly on my mealworm colony when our inside humidity was hovering at 85-95% before we turned the air on in the house. As soon as the air when on and the humidity dropped to 55-65% they died out entirely.

Before we turned on the air I was containing them by spraying the ones that left the meal worm bins with ivermectin and that did keep them contained and seemed to kill the ones I sprayed.
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