Has Anyone Tried Predatory Mites?

[ForeverMiteWar]

Has anyone ever tried releasing specific “Predatory” mites into an environment infested with Bird mites as an attempted solution? I have found some evidence that chicken farmers have used the species Hypoaspis aculeifer and Androlaelaps casalis in their coops and gardeners have released them in their crops to combat other mite species. There are quite a few companies offering vials of these predator mites for sale.

I am dealing with an infestation in my house of both Red Chicken Mites and Northen Fowl Mites lasting over a year. So far I have only been able to knock down their population taking my experience from being totally miserable to being just moderately annoying with conventional pyrethrins, enzyme soaps, obsessive cleaning and other countermeasures suggested here. I haven’t been able to completely solve the problem and before I consider abandoning all my possessions and trying to start over somewhere else I would consider giving this a try and was looking to see if anyone else had ever tried it.

[johndoe]

I have heard of one poster using duchies. It’s a predator mite and it worked for them they said. They said they got them in Holland. They said dutchies had to live in between 59 degrees and 79 degrees and they liked it humid I never could get any more information from the poster that used them

I use baking soda I throw it at the ceiling let it flow down over everything. It stops the bug from moving instantly. I use it also on my mattress and then cover the mattress with a piece of Dollar Store 9 by 12 plastic with crushed baking soda boxes or paper plates world in the corners of the plastic and stuffed under the edge of the bed so it doesn’t pull off then I put a bottom sheet over the plastic no bugs get me while I sleep. If they do I wake up covered with plastic again and missed with 1 tbsp coconut oil and 42 oz of warm water baseball hand sprayer made by Chapin and sold at Ace Hardware for $12 it is very convenient or use the Windex bottle if I don’t have another sprayer the bug could not navigate walking across plastic it has oil a water on it to get stuck can I get relief can get to go to sleep. They could be on the ceiling to I don’t hesitate to spray the ceiling with the coconut oil water mix God bless you I hope this helps right back anytime if you need anything oh, this is Bill

[ForeverMiteWar]

Thanks for the suggestion. I haven’t been able to get Androlis mites as they seem to be UK region specific but I was able to get some variants from Natures Good Guys. I’ll look more into the duchies.

For anyone interested here is breakdown of what I did try with the predator mites I was able to acquire.

I stopped using all pyrethrins, IGRs, glue boards, vacuuming, etc for a couple weeks to keep from killing the soldier mites and then I released a round of
25k Hypoaspis Miles
2k assortment of P.persimilis, N.californicus, A.cucumeris, A.swirskii.

After 2 weeks I did another round of
50k Hypoaspis Miles
4k assortment of P.persimilis, N.californicus, A.cucumeris, A.swirskii.

I distributed the predator mites with the sawdust organic material they were shipped in into little piles in all the rooms with the most mite activity and put some in the dirt of house plants in an attempt to give them a suitable habitat.

Ultimately, it was ineffective. Unfortunately, It negated most of the progress I had made prior with other countermeasures. After about 5 weeks I had to give up on the predator mites and go back to spraying and cleaning frequently to make existence more tolerable.

After this failed experiment of which there have been many in this war, I bought a 300 sqft 20,000 BTU whole room bedbug heater. It has been by far the most effective thing I have tried. I have been able to hold temperature around 135-145F in smaller rooms for a few hours in the house and afterward I am able to sit in peace and finally sleep undisturbed. I’m looking into larger solutions to heat treat an entire floor of the house or the whole dwelling at once as so far treating rooms individually is only temporarily effective.

I will most likely need a solution to do larger spaces to completely wipe them out. Annoyingly, finding a pest control company to perform the work has been a struggle. Even the large companies that specialise in this kind of work and have the equipment are refusing to take on the job at any price because their rigid price book and protocol doesn’t have a line item for rare instances of parasitic bird mites. I may just have to buy an indirect fired heating rig and do it myself to be able to finally end this and get my life back.

[ForeverMiteWar]

I found the product details for the Dutchy’s® brand mites and it looks like they are the same species of Hypoaspis miles (AKA Stratiolaelaps scimitus) I bought from Natures Good Guys that unfortunately did not solve the problem.

The description for a bottle of 10k Dutchy predatory mites says “With this you can supply approximately 10 m² preventive or approx. 5 m² already infested dwellings”
So, it is entirely possible that the 81k total predator mites I distributed throughout the house was spread too thin to have been fully effective.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by ForeverMiteWar. Reason: typo

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