Can I use ONLY diatomaceous earth for my chickens' dust baths? Do I need to add in anything else? - Page 2

If the diatomaceous earth is too large to get into the chickens lungs, then it is too large to kill mites and fleas.  Worthless, in other words.  This stuff is touted highly by the people who make it, but few others.  As an aside, it is also useless as a wormer, because the moisture inside the body turns the stuff into little more than sand. Do some research before you do anything with this.

I wish my girls would play in the dirt. Instead they roll around in the mulch. They had whole piles of it under their wings this weekend, then my BOs looked ridiculous speckled with black. Maybe trying to look like their Dominique sisters

 My girls seem to want to roll around in mud. Where ever I clean out their waterers or feeders or rinse poop off my "chicken shoes" is just exactly where they want to roll. Obviously doesn't show up so much on my Australorps but the Lt Brahmas look sooo funny with mud/dirt on their faces/heads and white feathers.

I use peat moss, DE, play sand and cooper sulfate in a big tub and they love it. As for it being to big to get in their lungs yes it can. I have breathed plenty of that stuff and I still live. I use it as a worm preventive, and in the 3 yrs I've been raising them have not seen one worm or lost birds to worms. You can use it in your nesting boxes.

Play sand  from the toystore is good for dustbaths - nice and fine and not too expensive!
 

I don't do anything special at all for dust baths.  My chickens dig nice big holes in their run and go to town dust bathing in, well, dust!    I don't bother with DE or anything else in their dust baths although I do dust the coop with it occasionally.  I also dust the coop with Sevin Garden and Poultry Dust two or three times a year.  Never had a mite/lice problem.  But as for the birds themselves, they dust bathe in dust!

Much more effective than DE is wood ashes. I have a spot where I burn wood from time and time and they love to dust bathe there once it cools. No mites, ever. That's an old time "remedy."

Hi. The DE actually penetrates the exoskeleton of the mites/lice and dries them up. Kind of disintegrates it, per say. This is the way it kills bugs. The mites/lice dont breath it in. I have used human grade DE several times and it works really well to get rid of these pests.  I will put it in a garden tub (black low tubs that look like cat litter boxes) mixed with dirt and the chickens will dust themselves and roll in the tub of dirt and DE. Just wanted to clarify what the DE actually does to the mites/lice.

I used to use DE, but found it to be a little too expensive.  So now I use mostly wood ash in thier dust box (sometimes a little plain sand added).  They also have sand under the raised coop to dust bathe in.  Works just as well for me as the DE did and it's free.  Personally I think the wood ash does the same type of thing as DE.  It's fine enough to really get into their feathers and seems to act almost like a drying agent on mites and lice.    To keep it dry if you don't have a covered run or raised coop, use one of those covered kitty litter boxes.  Works great.

i would be VERY careful using dirt from the road as it is probably laden with pollutants