Sevin

oneidalaker · Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:37 am

I've got a SY male that appears to have mites. He's doing a great job guarding his egg/babies but is the scratchyist bird I've ever seen (incidentally this SY male and his SY mate are using one of the excluder hole compartments that I was concerned about a month ago). I'm a bit concerned about the nestlings getting mites. I've been unable to find any sulfur but have found sevin which is used for poultry. Is it ok to place some sevin under my nests when I do my next next check?

John King · Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:44 am

Put about a 1/4 teaspoon into the nest away from the little ones and tap to settle it down. I use sevin from the time they start to lay until they are gone, NO bad results to the young and have not heard of any

Have a good year. John

Guest · Thu Jun 30, 2005 9:57 am

John, not that I am an expert by any means, but i do so agree with you regarding the sevin. I know thee has/and may always be strong opinions for and againt the use of sevin, Don and I have used it for years, just as you say you do, with great success. It is an automatic thing we put in the gourds, along with the cedar, each season, and of course during the season as to prevent any problems. If for any reason there should be mites, putting sevin in the gourds while babies are inside, has not proven to be a problem at all. Just thought I would add my two cents worth. Have a great day

oneidalaker · Thu Jun 30, 2005 10:29 am

thanks John and Holly, I'll make it part of my routine also

Guest · Fri Jul 01, 2005 12:24 pm

I found a nesting gourd with 4 young infested with mites. I took a handful of fresh pine needles sprayed it lighthly with some liquid sevin. When it was dry, I lowered the nests and held my hand over the three week old babies, and scraped out about half of the old nesting material and replaced it with the new, treated stuff. When I took my hand away, it was covered by hundreds if not thousands of crawling mites. That was about a week ago. There are no live mites in the nest now (that I can detect), the babies are about to fledge, and no apparent damage done. I know I feel better knowing that everyone in that nest are sleeping better and will go off soon without a terrible infestation.

Guest · Fri Jul 01, 2005 12:40 pm

One thing I would like to add to the great replies you have gotten. Please make sure you use 5%, NOT the 10%, if you opt to use the dust. We have used the 5% in the past, and have found it very effective for mites.

Dale Hrncirik · Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:14 pm

I just wanted to add one more thing to those that use sevin. Don't just put it at the entrance because when it gets wet...it doesn't work. I use a heaping 1/4 teaspoon and spread it around the entire outer edge of the nest. I do this only once about 3 days before eggs are expected to hatch. There's really no need to take it to extremes and do every nest if they are inactive(no eggs). My bag of 5% sevin in the garage is at least five years old and I have had no problems whatsoever. I very rarely get 'jumpers'...that being nestlings that fly the coop before they are of fledging age.

Dale

Guest · Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:35 pm

Hi ; I sprayed all my cavities last Fall , and again this Spring when I raised my housing.with liquid sevin ,for the First time ever. I find it was very sucessful as ,there is very little evidence of Mites & Blow fly larvae.

Guest · Mon Jul 04, 2005 11:26 am

I just thought I'd add my two cents worth to the sevin discussion! Last year was our sixth year with martins, but the first year with what I call a "mite explosion" -- the mites literally killed off the last few late-fledging babies. There were so many -- it still makes me itch to think of how they just took over the housing. Just lowering the housing seemed to completely cover my hands and arms -- I can only imagine how bad it must have been for the martins. Truly, it seemed to happen overnight. This year, I was determined to avoid a repeat scenario. So, after reading advice found here on the forum, I sprayed with liquid sevin before adding the nest material at the very beginning of the season, and then, once the eggs had been laid, I added 1/4 teaspoon of 5% sevin dust to the front edge of the nest. After taking these precautions, we saw no evidence of mites and we had 33 babies fledge out of seven nests. It has been a good martin season! Hope these examples help you to make up your mind about what to do! Good luck! -- Roslyn

Guest · Mon Jul 04, 2005 6:05 pm

I have also used Sevin for the first time this year. I spread 1/4 teaspoon of 5% on the bottom of each compartment before I put in the cedar shavings when I did nest changes. I have had no problem with mites since - and one compartment was pretty infested.

Emil Pampell-Tx · Mon Jul 04, 2005 6:15 pm

I didn't spray any sevin this year, as I never saw any mites. Today I started to take down the gourds on one rack that has no nesting pairs. To my big surprise, I found some mites real thick in a couple gourds, and a few mites in 3 or 4 more gourds. I checked them about 5 days ago and couldn't see any. They quickly explode

I will do exactly what Tom did above. I will practice preventative measures, as I sure hate those mites. Yes, I can imagine how the baby birds feel. I quickly went and added some sevin to the 5 remaining nests.