Keep your birds healthy and safe from red poultry mites and other parasites with Smite Professional RTU.

Smite Professional RTU (Ready To Use) is a specially selected, super-strength degreasant, disinfectant cleaner, with excellent wetting properties, which has been proven highly effective at eliminating red mites in poultry housing.

Smite Professional RTU Spray Bottle is pleasant to use, for both the operator and the birds. It is economical and contains no pesticides.

Smite Professional RTU key benefits:

• Powerful biocidal disinfectant – Smite! micro-organisms, bacteria and viruses.
• Highly efficient cleaner – Smite! organic matter where mite parasites breed and thrive.
• Super degreasant – Smite! buildup of waxes and decal deposits.
• Pleasant odour and easy-to-use dosing pump.
• Economical – only 3-6% dilution required (one litre makes up to 34 lites of disinfectant).
• Suitable for all animal housing.
• One product does it all – Smite! clean and disinfect, save time and money!

The red poultry mite, dermanyssus gallinae, is a prolific external parasite of birds which can be very difficult to eradicate – partly because the mite can survive for up to eight months between feeds – so they are often in situ, just waiting for the arrival of a new flock!

Mites feed largely on blood of the birds, but also on feathers, skin or scales; each blood feed lasts approximately 1-2 hours after which the mite leave the birds and return to hide in cracks and crevices in the poultry housing, where they lay their eggs, returning to the birds again the following night – hence, it is easy to miss their presence if examining a bird during daylight.

Heavy mite infestations in chickens lead to high levels of stress and result in anaemia, reduced egg production and, eventually if not treated, death, so the effects of red mite are of considerable economic importance when considering production costs. Additionally, mite can transmit diseases, such as the chicken pox virus, Newcastle Disease, fowl typhoid and salmonella as well as causing dermatitis and mange. When disturbed, they will also bite interfering humans and can cause a type of dermatitis.

At one time it was thought that mite only tended to live in wooden structures, but they are now found on both plastic and metal – anywhere that is as near to their next meal as possible. Nowadays, they are also becoming increasingly common in battery cages, where they cause severe health problems and economic loss.

Symptoms of red mite infestation:

• Pale, ‘jaundiced’ faces and wattles, through anaemia
• Depressed birds, lacking vitality
• Emaciation – or even weight gain!
• Decreased egg production plus increase in feed intake
• Dark dots and speckles on normally plain eggs – they may be blood or on closer inspection you may see the speckles move!
• In extreme cases, feather loss and signs of dermatitis
• Whitish-grey ‘ash’ (mite faeces) around the edges of crevices and in trails along and under perches.
• Active red mite on housing which glow in the light of a torch at night. (Underneath the roofing felt is a favourite place for mite to hide!)
• Hens may avoid a nesting box which is particularly badly infected.