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So which do you use or would you recommend as the best all round poultry disinfectant?

Not sure which is the best disinfectant. We have been using poultry shield for the red mite, but somewhere there was a reccommendation to use an organic spray made by the baby bio lot. Apparently it uses amino acids to break down the mite's protective coating. However there was a leaflet in this months practical poultry magazine for some products. Unfortunately, I have put it safe somewhere to order online and now cannot find it!

Yes I saw that leaflet this weekend when I picked up PP. It's called Total Poultry Solutions from NET TEX. Website: www.net-tex.co.uk

Does look quite interesting. I will have to take a look myself.

I have just phoned net-tex up and although you cannot buy directly from them unless you deal with agriculture or farming, they will put you in touch with a rep who will advise on where to buy the products.
It looks exceptionally good and good value for money.

I see Ascott are selling it - www.ascott.biz

I use Virkon S. Good for scrubbing out henhouses and all utensils.

just been giving Net Tex a try as it came highly recommended by a friend, The red mite spray has a built in disenfectant so it helps with other problems as well. Only sprayed huts this weekend and powdered dust baths and nest boxes after cleaning so can't  say if any good yet.
As for disenfectant usually use Virkon / poultry shield or F10 swap about as I can never make up my mind!!

Will be interesting to see what you think Mandie, sound's good!

Please keep us posted.

Thanks.

The only thing I have ever found that worked against red mite apart from real creosote is Ficam W, applied with a pressure sprayer kills all the adults and then the residual action (which really works) kills them as they hatch, takes about a week to go from heavy infestation to zero.
I spent no end on useless red mite killer before I found Ficam.

Also use Stalosan in my houses, its a disinfectant powder just sprinkle it about and no waiting for things to dry.

Someone on another forum has just discovered B & Q 'Bug Free' is brilliant for killing red mite. He said there were hundreds of dead red mite after he sprayed with it. Never had red mite, but will be getting some as a precaution. I have the inside of my shed painted with creasote, and a coroline roof, so hopefully I've got it covered. I also use Virkin to clean with, as it seems to kill most things.

Its relatively easy to kill adult red mite, its the eggs that are the problem.
Let us know if he has continued success with it, might give it a go if its cheaper than Ficam W,

I'm sure you're right, and don't know how effective it would be on the eggs? I'll let you know how his trial goes with it as he seemed to have quite a bad infestation.

just been giving Net Tex a try as it came highly recommended by a friend, The red mite spray has a built in disenfectant so it helps with other problems as well. Only sprayed huts this weekend and powdered dust baths and nest boxes after cleaning so can't say if any good yet.
As for disenfectant usually use Virkon / poultry shield or F10 swap about as I can never make up my mind!!

1. Well net-tex does seem to have work, haven't seen any red mite but I bet they are in there... lurking
   Anyway also trying out some new stuff called Smite (read about it on www.smite-a-mite.com loads of info)
   we were given a old broody box we were going to burn it as it's practically falling to bits and we found some mite in the joints so we have taken it down the back field soaked it in smite and left it for a couple of days went back it's clear we took it apart before burning it and couldn't find a thing..... (we had also spray the area around where we had placed the little box just incase they went walkies!!) the good think about this is that it's only £10 per litre which makes up 34litres or if you buy a 5 litre container it's only £16 which makes up a whopping 170 litres+ of product so quiet econmical. Again includes a disinfectant built in and a degreaser.
   Think I'm more impressed with smite than net tex but I'm trying both on the different huts and time will tell.

We use net-tex viratec-p for general weekly use in the pens and total serilising solutions in the broody house. then once a month I spray a 50/50 solution of V-18 all over the insides of the houses.
we use V-18 in our foot dips aswell.

Is there a non toxic organic disinfectant that one can use, maybe a vinegar or grapefruit seed extract solution? Anything one can mix up oneself? I noticed mention of an herbal product. I've never disinfected my coop, just hosed it down. Sounds like a good idea.

Poultry Shield is useful as a general disinfectant. Over the years when I've had problems with red mite (usually carried by wild birds), which only started when I bought an ark on eBay - it looked clean, so I didn't spray it or anything. I put growers in and lost 75% of them, couldn't understand why until someone told me to go out about an hour or two after the birds have gone in to roost and shine a torch around. I nearly fainted, it was seething with red mite - the remaining growers went into a canary breeding box and I burnt the ark, £65 quid on the bonfire..
I then did a lot of reading up on red mite: it doesn't live on the birds and you rarely see them during the day (they live in all the little cracks and crevices and places where it is dark and they can hide, even the ends of perches (all my coops and sheds have removable perches. When there is a bad infestation they will even live underneath plastic feeders and waterers in the shed/coop.
The life cycle is about 7 days and the mite goes thru several stages before it mates and will only lay eggs after a blood feed. The eggs hatch into protonymphs (24 hrs after being laid) and then start to feed on the birds and then change into deutonymphs before it becomes a red mite and able to mate. So a few odd mites can soon become an invasion of thousands.
Some of the signs you have red mite are: birds restless at night (the mites will only feed for up to 2 hours), combs turning pale, general listlessness and chickens can die during a really bad infestation, also birds not wanting to go into the shed, coop or nesting box.
I've found that the best way to treat, if not using creosote, is diatom powder. You can get it as a fine powder which can be blown into all the crevices and sprinkled under the bedding (you can buy small plastic bellows specifically for this) and you can also get diatom in a coarser form which you mix with water (make a thin paste) and brush over the inside of the coop/shed before the dusting..
Diatom powder is made of millions of microscopic algae which have sharp edges - these penetrate the eggs and the skin of the larva and the mite itself causing it to dehydrate and die. This can all be done when the birds are out during the day. It does not harm the birds, in fact, it acts as a wormer. I sprinkle half to a teaspoonful on the feeds every month
.Previously I was spending literally hundreds of pounds on different treatments (I have 250+ birds). I even contacted a laboratory who let me have one of the products they sold to the poultry industry - 500ml cost me over £80, - I still had red mite 10 days after treatment.

Disinfecting chick waterers and feeders, i use hot soapy water, then a spray of Dettol multi surface cleaner, the clear one which doesn't smell or taste of anything, it's brilliant for using on the incubators and hatcher, and outside i have always used Jeyes fliud, and rinse it off really well, Virkron is also another really good one, but it brings me out in hives, so i have to be really careful with that one. Natural disinfectants, i have heard about tea tree, and eucalyptus, but i haven't used them other than eucalyptus oil on the bedding to help upper respiritory and breathing.
JubesX

Is there a non toxic organic disinfectant that one can use, maybe a vinegar or grapefruit seed extract solution? Anything one can mix up oneself? I noticed mention of an herbal product. I've never disinfected my coop, just hosed it down. Sounds like a good idea.

In my Hen house we use Barrier V1 its plant based so wont harm eggs or chickens, its totally organic and kills fungus and bacteria. Google it, it smells nice too!

for a natural disinfectant, five drops of teatree oil into a gallon of water then add 10 tablespoons of baking powder and 2 tablespoons of borax, its a very old recipe but will kill just about anything.

Good post archiesgems!!!

JubesX

That'll be the Borax, it will even help treat thrush/white line disease in a neddys hoof, excellent stuff.

Best stuff i have ever come across is F10, widely used in the parrot world and used by vets.

I discovered mites on Friday :( Typically, my little araucana has been sitting and I'd just ordered some eggs for her. She came out and I thought she looked a little too pale - closer inspection - yuk!

It isn't a good idea to use Jeyes - its for drains and lavatories!! Dettol is OK but to just wash the coop out use something like Poultry Shield. We gave up the 'green/organic' in favour of kill, kill, kill. Milbenex is the only one which seems to work and go on working for upto 6 weeks. But it isn't licensed in the UK so you can't get it unless you're a smallholder. We use it in the sheds, coops and runs (birds elsewhere until it dries - a couple of hours or so). We then puff diatom in as well - then check a week later and use a bit more diatom. It really is a nightmare problem if you've got more than a couple of dozen birds. You just have to keep checking and checking ongoing. The big sheds are sprayed and then creosoted. At the moment its a full time job for both of us - so much for a nice retirement.

The basics of cleaning a hut or shed are simple, you must clean it first using a detergent or better still a quat type disinfectant such as Interdes F, then allow to dry and finally spray at the correct dilution the correct disinfectant for the problem.

If you have red mites, worms, or have had a sick bird in the hut then a stronger broad spectrum product such as interkokask is best, whilst for general disinfectant use Bioshield.

Always use at general orders dilution according to the label and there will be no need to use stronger solutions. The structure needs to look clean before applying the disinfectant . For more info please see: http://www.chickenvet.co.uk/shop/products/index.aspx/category/disinfectants-1

- Chicken Vet