Almost everyone loves birds. However, you can’t ignore the mess that bird mites residing with some birds can create. From debris to droppings and diseases, bird mites can create multiple problems.
Here in this article, we will take a closer look to describe what is a bird mite and how it can harm humans.
So, here we go:
What is a Bird Mite?
Do you want to learn what is a bird mite? Bird mites are parasitic in nature and naturally found where some birds’ nests are located. These more often include starlings, pigeons, sparrows, poultry, etc.
Bird mites are more commonly found in warmer regions. There exist different types of bird mites. However, the one that more commonly infects humans is the domestic Starling mite.
However, key characteristics of bird mites include the following:
These are small in size and are less than 1mm in length.
Bird mites have 8 legs and are very mobile.
They have semi-transparent color. However, when these digest blood, they turn reddish to black.
Bird mites are oval in shape, with short hair and sparse covering.
Bird mites feed themselves on birds’ skin, keratin, and blood. If the birds leave their nests, these mites can infest homes to find a consistent blood meal source. They will then ingress into a house and bite humans or pet animals to feed themselves.
What does a bird mite look like?
After knowing what is a bird mite, it’s important to know how they look.
Bird mites are from the same family as ticks and spiders.
These are small parasitic creatures; adult bird mites grow 1/32 of an inch with flattened oval-shaped bodies covered with short hairs.
Matured bird mites have 8 legs.
Bird mites’ color depends upon their feeding timing.
Where can you find bird mites?
Bird bites commonly reside in humid and moist conditions. These are more active during early summer and spring and are found where birds and their nests are naturally.
You can also find these in living spaces of your house, climbing on ceilings, walls, and bedding in search of their feed.
How to identify if you have a bird mites infestation?
Although the primary host of bird mites are chickens, Pigeons, starlings, and sparrows. However, these can migrate in large numbers if their host dies or fly off. Bird mites can enter your home through gaps available around doors and windows and spaces in your attic.
The problem of bird mites is very prevalent, especially if you have nests of birds closer to or inside your home. Moreover, these can enter your home if you have gotten already infested birds or small animals from pet shops.
Identifying the presence of bird mites is harder. It is mainly because these are small in size and low in number more often.
Birds are the primary food source for bird mites. These can’t survive more than 3 weeks without a food source. While hunting a new food source, they may rely on mammals such as humans and pet animals to feed off.
You may have tiny red dots moving on your ceiling, bed, or walls, or you may find itchy bites on your body. These are some of the important signs indicating the presence of bird mites in your home.
Female mites can bite any part of the human body that, causes a swollen red bump. The bumps look similar to bed bug bites; therefore, these are hard to distinguish.
Although bites of bird mites don’t cause illness or transfer diseases, they are irritating.
Are bird mites harmful to humans and pets?
Generally, birds are the main host of bird mites, which feed on their blood. These will reside on humans when birds leave their nests. As mites are left without any suitable host to feed on. Although bird mites will feed humans and pets’ blood, these don’t live on humans because they can’t complete their lifecycle here.
Here are some signs of bites from bird mites:
These cause severe itching, irritation, and reddish spots because mites inject saliva into the skin to feed blood.
Bird mites’ bites can cause discomfort.
These may result in any secondary infection due to scratching.
Although bird mites’ bites aren’t that harmful to humans, the sensation of bird mites crawling cause irritation.
Therefore, getting rid of bird mites is easier if you remove their primary hosts from your place.
How to get rid of bird mites?
Bird mites are small in size. You can find these in lower numbers near birds, poultry houses, and their nests. In case of favorable living conditions, the colony of bird mites can grow to thousands.
It is always better to use preventive methods to keep bird mites at bay. Here are some of the most effective tips you must consider to prevent bird mites in the best possible way.
So, here we go:
Remove bird nests
Nests and poultry houses near your home are obvious signs of bird mites’ infestation. Remove bird nests that are located near or inside your house. You can either remove bird nests on your own or hire a fully-equipped professional to deal with the problem more effectively.
Don’t forget to wear face masks and gloves to ensure self-protection while removing bird nests.
Important tip:
If you buy any birds from a pet shop, ensure it doesn’t have a bird mites problem.
Reduce the humidity level of your house
Check out your house’s humidity level. Bird mites live in humid areas. So, if the humidity score is high, using a dehumidifier would be the best bet to consider.
Keep the humidity level of your house below 30%. Besides using a dehumidifier, ventilating your home regularly can also help you in moist control.
Get help from heat treatments.
Heat treatments target one room at a time. You can use these to disinfect your place in one cycle. Although heat treatments are more often applied to remove bed bugs but these have similar effects on bird mites.
Besides that, it’s also important to consider meticulous cleaning of your infested rooms. This will help in removing bird mites away and keeping your place pests-free in the best possible way. You can also use certified insecticides for this purpose.
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Miteinfestaion.com blog was started to help others deal with the problems of Mites, bed bugs, fleas, ticks and other small, often unseen critters that give us problems. We hope these articles are a help to you as you deal with these types of issues. Any product or service we provide on these pages have been proven to work. We are solely reader supported so we may receive a small percentage as an affiliate of Amazon and other companies.
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