Aussie Finch Forum

For yrs ive used coopex in my avairies mainly against ants. I baycox and moxidexin around now just before the breeding season. This has worked well for me. My gouldian nesting boxes are cleaned and new material placed in them around xmas . Every 2nd yr I strip my nesting mattresses and replace the tea tree. With regular sprays of coopex in between mainly for prevention of ants. My large nesting cylinders which I now have 6 of normally have a multitude of nests splattered amongst them all yr round so I have been reluctant to strip them for fear of upsetting breeding birds, but have regularly sprayed with coopex instead. Well I noticed a lack of young being produced so I went around with a torch inspecting the nests in the cylinder (its possibly 4yrs since I replaced all the tea tree) all empty bar a few eggs. So I stripped it down and to my surprise the nests were full of hundreds of mites. The coopex obviously doesn't penetrate very far into the cylinder. The mattresses are still producing young but are only 4 inches wide.
So far Ive stripped and reteatreed 3 of the cyl. and they all had mite infestations.
I had owls in with my gouldians with an old cylinder I remove from another aviary it didnt appear to be being used so I sprayed it and placed it in with the owls and gouldians. After 6mths and no breeding success with the owls I moved the owls and the nesting cylinder into an avairy of their own.
The gouldians were now in aviary devoid of any nesting spots . They were coopexed about a week ago and moxidexened and baycoxed only a couple of days ago. When I went to remove the medicated water from their bird bath it was full of dead mites. It would appear they came off when the gouldians bathed in the medicated water. These birds showed no signs of mite infestation yet they were.
I intend to go through all the nesting spots and replace the tea tree. The cylinders I intend to redo every august/september reqardless of weather they are being used. I was only medicating once a yr I now intend to medicate in september and april.
my other concern is a couple of the aviaries are planted, how do I eradicate mites from a dense stand of elephant grass or a well established privot bush?.

Thanks for letting us know. As my practices are similar this is a good warning.
LML

well I googled bird mites and couldnt find anything that resembles them. I quarantine all birds I buy , these things are in all 5 aviaries. So in future I will quarantine any birds prior to moving them from one avairy to another, in the hope of eradicating them from the lightly planted and non planted aviaries

Thanks mate, i have them as well. They are a type of grain/dust beetle and feed on anything they can access including droppings not blood so not mites.
They are or seem resistant to Coopex for some reason and are more prevalent or seen during the warmer months and hibernate during the colder months. Maybe due to the residual time of coopex they can hide and resume their feeding so hard to exterminate but to be honest they don't do any harm to adult birds or their young but nice to not have them in your aviaries.

Craig thanks for the reply, they look like a beetle and they do seem resistant to coopex . I found a dead bird covered in them. When I stripped the nesting cylinder there were smaller critters as well I thought they were baby mites, they looked like the pics of mites on google. They were to small to get a decent pic with my macro lens. A couple of my tricolored parrot finches had a growth develop around the eyes, after researching these mites I feel it may have been scaley mite. I pulled out one of the nesting mattress s that the tri's had been using and there were several dead babies at different stages of development and heaps of eggs, I presumed they were being attacked by critters. After I rebrush the mattress clean and coopex the area I might try surface spray as well in an endeavor to eradicate all the critters what do you think?

That maybe the way to go mate but i worry about smelly chemicals with birds. Coopex is pyrethrin which is a natural plant repellent.
Maybe do a yearly cleanup of nesting sites and coopex two or three times a year as the directions state max time to be residual for 3 months i think, you can use it while birds are nesting or have young in the nest on a warm day.

Coopex is 4 months residual acording to the packet. I know because I spent Friday morning spraying half of the block with it.
LML

Will do thanks for the advice

Yes i thought it was around that length of time but the time it stays residual is how strong the mixture is FB

I use 3ltrs of water to 1 sachel of Coopex. It lasted 5 months. That was for the fleas the B cats bought home and infested my verandah with. The ants still have not come back to the avairies which I did at the same time. Hope that helps.
LML