Just found cockroaches the size of hamsters in my coop. HELLLPPP!!!!!

[dottie1111]

I WOULD REMOVE ALL BEDDING AND USE SHOP VAC TO VACUME THE COOP OUT REAL WELL TO REMOVE ALL EGG PODS CLEAN AND DISENFECT AND SPRAY OR USE A NON TOXIC PEST CONTROL LIKE ORANGE OIL YOU CAN CALL FOR ADVICE FROM A PEST CONTROL PLACE . MAKE SURE IT IS NON TOXIC TO THE CHICKENS AND LET IT VENT OUT REAL WELL MAKE SURE ALL NEST BOXES ARE TREATED ALSO. IF THE EGGS FROM THE ROACHES ARE LEFT AND NOT KILLED THE ROACHES WILL HATCH THIS PROCESS WILL TAKE ALL DAY NEED TO START EARLY IN THE MORNING . REOLACE WILL ALL CLEAN BEDDING AND THEN USE DE TO CONTROL AFTERWARDS. GET ADVICE BEFORE USEING ANY PEST CONTROL CHEMICALS AROUND YOUR CHICKENS:cd

 

[bryan99705]

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and provide food for the chickens.

I would disagree with feeding the dead bugs to the chickens, a full chicken won't hunt (the live ones!)

 

[bywaterdog]

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and provide food for the chickens.

I would disagree with feeding the dead bugs to the chickens, a full chicken won't hunt (the live ones!)

There's no way I would attempt to feed my chickens with the dead ( and rotting) roaches, they go straight into the trash.

 

[Corona~Barb]

Wow, yeah, this thread has some humor in it...but, but, really, I hate cockroaches. I was born in Florida and will NEVER GO BACK! My mom used to tell me about the bugs there and in Georgia when she lived there. I'll take the dry southwest any day. )

 

[dawg53]

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You can vacuum, clean and spray all day long...Palmetto bugs will be back. Just like treating your lawn for mole crickets....just when you think you've got them wiped out, they fly over from your neighbor's yard and then start on your lawn all over again. Just gotta live with it. One good thing is that chickens love to eat mole crickets.

 

[featherbaby]

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AMEN

 

[featherbaby]

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Wow! I want to try this? How did you do it?

I panned the coops the other night with a flashlight and was horrified to see roaches all over the back walls and playing leapfrog in the litter while my silkies slept peacefully.....oblivious to the insect mayhem all around them! I couldn't get them to wake up and chase them. Silkies are such "slugs" sometimes.

My most pressing question is: If I use Sevin dust in my litter and the roaches ingest it.....will the chickens be poisoned by eating them?
Same question about the "Orange Guard" spray?

 

[Barrdwing]

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Wow! I want to try this? How did you do it?

I panned the coops the other night with a flashlight and was horrified to see roaches all over the back walls and playing leapfrog in the litter while my silkies slept peacefully.....oblivious to the insect mayhem all around them! I couldn't get them to wake up and chase them. Silkies are such "slugs" sometimes.

My most pressing question is: If I use Sevin dust in my litter and the roaches ingest it.....will the chickens be poisoned by eating them?
Same question about the "Orange Guard" spray?

With the Sevin Dust, I think you're OK: wildlife rehabbers use Sevin Dust on baby birds and I've used it on my adult chickens. When they preen, they end up ingesting a little, but they do OK--Sevin Dust acts on nerve receptors that birds have very few of. The Sevin Dust actually kills insects on contact--they don't have to eat it. So you should be OK with it, unless you used a huge amount. I don't know anything about Orange Guard.

Training the chicks . . . we started by coming out to the coop just as the birds were going to bed, and picked up the waterer. Roaches scurried out. Our chicks at that time were Andalusian crosses about a month old, four roos and a hen, and they were very competitive! I think their mother had shown them that roaches were tasty at some point. Anyway, one of the chicks saw a roach and ran after it, which caught the attention of the others, and before long they were all on the hunt.

Once the chicks were used to this--and it didn't take long--then we started coming out later and later. It took some coaxing at first to get the chicks to hop down off the perches in poor light: chickens do not have good night vision at all, and a flashlight does not light up the surroundings well enough for them to have good depth perception. They knew what they were missing, though, and they really, really wanted the roaches. The roos in particular tended to just fall off the perches, bounce, settle their feathers, and stomp off in pursuit.

Every time we hit a roach with the flashlight beam, of course it would try to escape it. And even if the chick was hot on the tail of the roach, if it got out of the beam, they couldn't see it. This meant that a roach could escape if it doubled back and ran under the chick to hide in its shadow. It was easier for the chicks to catch their prey if we had two people with flashlights out there. The chicks learned fast that where the lights were, food was also there.

At the end of the buggy round-up, the hardest part was getting them to go back to the perches! That depth perception thing, again. They'd spend ages on the ground squinting up at the perch, bobbing their heads back and forth, then suddenly leap up in a frantic whirl of wings and legs and grab the perch as they went by. Watching them go back to bed was almost as funny as watching them chase the roaches!

 

[featherbaby]

Thanks so much for the help. I am going to try this and see if my little mop-headed silkies will chase them in a flashlight beam or not. I appreciate the info on sevin dust. I have got to reduce the population of roaches in the night time coop...before they completely take over. I'm pretty tough about most things but it gave me the heebie jeebies to see so many of them on the back wall of the coops and know that there were many more I wasn't seeing. This could become unmanageable soon if I don't act.

 

[laughingdog]

roaches d seem o be nature's best bird poop cleaner, and mine love that, chick feed, and dry dog food the traes of roaches around my chicken areas before thouhbest. ive never noticed any