Aussie Finch Forum

hi there,
I have been faced with air sac mite on gouldians and I was using Avimec to treat them. It s working well but I am just wondering, how do we prevent it rather than do the treatment when it happens. Any idea or experience for this? Thank you!

You should not only treat the birds but also clean your aviary and replace or clean perches with an insecticide. The easiest and safest way is with coopex which is residual and works for several months against mites,spiders and ants. Craig

Use natural perches/branches that you can just replace every so often.
LML

An effective prevention for air sac mite to avoid the need for treatment options is to not keep canaries with finches. Canaries are very common carriers of ASM which adjacent finches can then catch the bug.

What types of finches are you dealing with? Gouldians? They seem the most prone to airsac mite from my observation. I treated and cleared the airsac mite from my Canaries and have had no problems since.
LML

Birds are regularly infected with air sac mites and all new birds should be quarantined for a month before being added to your collection. While in quarantine they should be treated for intestinal worms and air sac mites.

When you have birds in quarantine, feed and work on your original stock and after they have been fed, watered, etc, you work on the birds in quarantine. This will help to prevent you cross contaminating your current stock with diseases from the new stock. Make sure you wash up well after working with the new birds and if possible change your clothes before going back out to your current birds.

I use Ivermectin (available from a vet) and treat all new birds while they are being quarantined.

If you have air sac mites in your aviaries you should treat all your birds at the same times and clean, replace, disinfect everything including nests. The mites hide in small dark gaps (where sheet metal joins, nests, etc) and you need to get rid of them to reduce the chance of reinfection.

You can hang moth balls near nests and around the edge of the aviary and it can help get rid of air sac mites but make sure the birds can't peck at them because they are not safe for birds to eat.