Wild birds often carry mites and, in visiting our bird feeders, can pass them on to other wild birds.
To treat a mite infestation in your backyard, consider the following:
• Don't compound the problem by filling your bird station with infected seed. Check the wild bird seed. If you see little tiny moving specks in them, discard - or freeze for a week or so (preferably toss though). Don't store wild bird seed outside - they get infected too easily.
• Wash any bird feeders that you may be using. Hose your bird feeders down every night with a Power Sprayer and let it dry overnight.
• Use several feeding stations in different areas of your garden. This way you spread out the visiting birds. Close contact between the birds facilitates the spread of disease. If you believe the area around the bird feeder is infected, change the location of the bird feeders. If you look closely, you may see little moving specs. Lift up stones or large wood items on the ground around the feeder -- if you see little tiny specks, these may be red mites. You may also see mites moving up and down on the pole of your feeder. These mites are big enough to be seen moving around.
Mites in general, and red mites specifically, like to hide in the crevices of wood for example. They hitch a ride at your feeder and once the bird is at the nest, they will settle there and infect both parents and chicks. Some mites will stay on birds and cause little harm; while others - such as the Red Mite -- will actually live in the bird's nest and only spend enough time on the bird to feed from it. Similar to fleas.
Those mites can most easily be seen around the head. As the birds scratch themselves the skin may get infected and they lose feathers. These mites are especially devastating for the chicks as the mites feed on their blood. The younger chicks stand very little chance. The only way the bird parents can rid itself of this mite is by continuously moving -- leaving the infected nests behind and sometimes abandoning the infected chicks.
