Vinegar bath suggestions?

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shelbyw

shelbyw

Songster
6 Years
Jul 1, 2015
381
949
242
North Carolina
My Coop
My Coop
Hello! I plan on bathing my chickens today and I was wondering if I could just use distilled vinegar. We do have organic apple cider vinegar, but would not that attract flies?? I really do not want anyone to get flytrap and this is why I plan on bathing them in vinegar today since it is getting warmer;) Suggestions and ingredients would be awesome!
 
IdyllwildAcres said:
Why are you bathing them?

Gary
Click to expand...

I have 2 hens that I am bathing because they nest in a couple of the nesting boxes at night and end up pooping in them. It annoys me a lot because their bums get all gross even though I clean out the 2 nesting boxes they do that in. I clean all the nesting boxes all the time, but those 2 boxes are cleaned everyday. I am not bathing the whole chicken though because I know that it is not good to bathe them entirely.
 
chickens really said:
Chickens do not need baths......They need dust bath areas to keep clean.....Sand, soft soil.....


Cheers!....
wink.png
Click to expand...

They have a couple of dust bathing areas and they absolutely love to do that, but these 2 hens that I have decide they want to sleep in nesting boxes instead of on one of them 4 perches I have. I have tried to train them to go perch at night. I would put them on a perch that is away from the boxes every night and I would stay up there until they actually rested on it. I was very happy, but they recently went back to sleeping in a couple of the nesting boxes and they are getting dirty bums again.
he.gif
I am going to train them again starting tonight, but I am not going to wash them entirely. :)
 
Shelby, I agree with CR. Get to the root of the problem, which is the chickens sleeping in the nest boxes. Where are your nest boxes in relation to the perches? Are the perches above the nest boxes? Are these 2 hens being bullied? How big is your coop (exact dimensions) How many chickens? How many linear feet of perch? If you can figure out why the birds are sleeping in the boxes, you'll have a better chance at having a permanent fix to the problem. If you continue to raise new birds every year or two, you will find that nest sleeping is a problem that needs to be dealt with frequently. Perhaps you can make some coop adjustments to make it easy to block off the boxes. My top boxes have a flip up roost that blocks the boxes. Simply flip it up late afternoon, flip it down in the morning. My bottom boxes aren't much of a sleeping attraction, but I do have a piece of plywood with key hole slots that is easy to drop into place to block those boxes off.
 

I am actually expanding the coop in a couple of weeks:) The perches are temporary for now until I can build a chicken ladder. I don not know the exact size of the coop, but it can fit about 11 chickens comfortably. These 2 hens are actually my most bossiest hens
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They do not really pick on my other chickens anymore, but they still are the "queens" of the coop;) I put them on a higher perch last night and they stayed on it all night. I did put this particular perch above the old nesting boxes. I am going to continuously put them on this perch until they get used to it again. These particular nesting boxes are about 3 and 1 half to 4 feet off the ground. I have never thought of the flip up idea! I might just have to do that for them
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It sounds simple and they won't be able to get in the boxes at all.
 

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