Mosquitoes Reproducing in Waterer

[Blooie]

If mosquito larvae can hatch in 1 to 3 days under optimal conditions, then it is entirely possible that the waterer is getting dumped as regularly as the OP says. If she goes out early on Monday morning and dumps and cleans the waterer, then later Monday morning Mama Mosquito comes along and lays her eggs, there could well be a fresh crop of wigglers by Tuesday or Wednesday. I would certainly think that an open water source of any kind in Texas would be considered "optimal conditions.." I have a bird bath for my little visitors and forgot to put mosquito dunk in it when I scrubbed it and put in fresh water last time. I had wigglers within two days, and Northern Wyoming is a far cry from Texas. The adult mosquitoes you saw when you lifted the cover off your waterer might not have been fresh hatched, but a swarm of the little boogers who found a source for laying eggs. When I had my little pond, sometimes I'd see those swarms just above the pond surface. Didn't mean they'd just hatched - again the pond had a generous helping of Mosquito Dunk on it - but just that they'd found a water source.

I would definitely switch to a bucket with horizontal nipples. I've been really happy with mine. The cover is on, and except for the tiny hole at the top where my water level indicator comes out, there are no openings into the water. You might try that. Costs a bit in the beginning for the bucket and the nipples, unless you score a free bucket from your local bakery or deli, but well worth the investment. I'm so paranoid about leaving places for mosquitoes to multiply that I have mosquito dunk in the old tires on the roof of our house. (Tires keep the roof on this old mobile home from rippling in the wind)


@ChickenCanoe gave you some really good links.


Edited by Staff

 

[ChickenCanoe]

...
I would definitely switch to a bucket with horizontal nipples. I've been really happy with mine. The cover is on, and except for the tiny hole at the top where my water level indicator comes out, there are no openings into the water. You might try that. Costs a bit in the beginning for the bucket and the nipples, unless you score a free bucket from your local bakery or deli, but well worth the investment. ...

Places that serve pickles with their dishes go through a ton of food grade 5 gallon buckets and throw them away. That would be sports bars, pubs, hamburger joints, etc.
There's a local chain of Welsh pubs here that use about a bucket a day at each location. I can score as many as I want.
I keep some of my feed, all my grains, seeds, etc. in them.

Thanks Blooie.

 

[centrarchid]

Water alone does not provide optimal habitat. Wrigglers / larvae require nutrition as well. Most potable water sources used to fill waterers will not contain the nutrients needed by the mosquitos. The nutrients are likely introduced by chickens themselves, especially if feeding area is close to waterer. If mosquitos are able to close life cycle then you have sufficient time not only for eggs to incubate and larvae to grow, you also have time for tumblers / pupae to do their bit. This means the cleaning interval exceeds a week. Shorten that interval.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It may only take a day or two for some mosquito eggs to hatch and you start seeing wigglers. That’s not a huge deal as long as you dump the water a couple of times a week before they mature enough to become adult mosquitoes. The wigglers aren’t the problem, the adults are.

You have to look at your entire watering system. I’m not sure what waterer you have since adult mosquitoes can get into your reservoir. That means it is not working on a vacuum system, at least totally. If you take the top off to add water, it’s certainly not a vacuum. Some people push the nipples as a way to avoid a mosquito problem but that depends on how well the reservoir is sealed. If mosquitoes can get in the reservoir they can still breed.

Another potential problem with water is that if it gets dirty bacteria can breed and become a disease risk. They really need clean water. Watering can be a challenge.

If your reservoir can stay clean where algae and other microbes don’t grow in there and ”trash” doesn’t build up to block the piping or tubing, you can get “dunks” to put in there. I get my dunks from the gardening center to put in my rain barrels I use to water my garden. Dunks are an organic approved method to control mosquito larva. It is a specific form of BT that targets mosquitoes that is perfectly safe for your chickens. It gives the larva a belly ache so they stop eating and starve to death. It’s basically a disease that only affects mosquito and fly larva. It’s not a disease that will affect chickens, fish, or anything else.

Dunks may take care of mosquito problems if you don’t have to dump the water all the time for other reasons, but you still have to manage your water bowls. You have to look at the whole system and come up with a way that works for you.

 

[frenchiegirl21]

I did research last night and quite a few species of mosquitoes in Texas can go through their entire lifecycle in 4 days. So, from egg to adult in 4 days. Which means that if I were to clean/disinfect the water fount on Saturday and did not have time to "adequately" (I use that term loosely since I feel that I clean everything adequately on a daily basis) clean it again until Wednesday after work there could be an entirely new generation of mosquitoes completely grown and ready to fly away. Please do research on the mosquitoes found in my state before you tell me that I am only cleaning my water founts once every two weeks because it takes 7-10 days for a mosquito to hatch and grow up.That may be true where you live, but is not necessarily true for where I am located.

I try and limit how much organic material is in the water founts but I cannot be out there 24/7 checking to make sure the water is perfectly clean. I am currently the only person residing in my house that includes multiple flocks of chickens, 10+ hives of honey bees, and 4 dachshunds. I work full-time and can't always spend time cleaning/disinfecting. So yes, maybe I need to do better, but I only asked for a workable solution.

This is the waterer we use: http://www.scruggsfarm.com/little-giant-plastic-poultry-water-fount-ppf3,-ppf5,-ppf7.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjwiN6sBRDK2vOO_vaRs5cBEiQAfsnJCT3eJEDqTlDnZw6VYoGgJhaMe0xgCyL4wOFq1Xj4jQsaAiDm8P8HAQ. My best guess is that the little wrigglers are slipping through the spout and that's why there are adults when I open the top.

For those that use the nipple systems, how long did it take your chickens to figure the new system out? It is currently the middle of summer here (well, and elsewhere too) and I'm worried that they won't figure it out quickly enough and might get dehydrated and die. It's happened before when I was working and my brother did not give the chickens enough water for the day. Does that make sense?


@Ridgerunner will those dunks hurt the chickens or the bees? That's the first thing I thought of but I wasn't sure if anyone had tried them with their chickens.

@centrarchid the wagon is a really good idea, but I live in the city and the chicken pen is about 100 yards from my house. Would bleach work as a chlorine source to dip the founts in? And how long do you let your founts rinse/dry to make sure the chlorine doesn't hurt the chickens? Or does it not hurt them?



Edited by Staff

 

[frenchiegirl21]

Also, this water fount in question happens to be in the shade. Would putting it the sun help or make things worse?

@ChickenCanoe facts don't bother me. Please refer to my previous post about the information I found out about the mosquito species that live where I am located. The information I found out came from Texas A&M University's research teams, so I do believe it is accurate and unbiased.


Edited by Staff

 

[centrarchid]

I did research last night and quite a few species of mosquitoes in Texas can go through their entire lifecycle in 4 days. So, from egg to adult in 4 days. Which means that if I were to clean/disinfect the water fount on Saturday and did not have time to "adequately" (I use that term loosely since I feel that I clean everything adequately on a daily basis) clean it again until Wednesday after work there could be an entirely new generation of mosquitoes completely grown and ready to fly away. Please do research on the mosquitoes found in my state before you tell me that I am only cleaning my water founts once every two weeks because it takes 7-10 days for a mosquito to hatch and grow up.That may be true where you live, but is not necessarily true for where I am located. 

I try and limit how much organic material is in the water founts but I cannot be out there 24/7 checking to make sure the water is perfectly clean. I am currently the only person residing in my house that includes multiple flocks of chickens, 10+ hives of honey bees, and 4 dachshunds. I work full-time and can't always spend time cleaning/disinfecting. So yes, maybe I need to do better, but I only asked for a workable solution.

This is the waterer we use: http://www.scruggsfarm.com/little-giant-plastic-poultry-water-fount-ppf3,-ppf5,-ppf7.html?gclid=Cj0KEQjwiN6sBRDK2vOO_vaRs5cBEiQAfsnJCT3eJEDqTlDnZw6VYoGgJhaMe0xgCyL4wOFq1Xj4jQsaAiDm8P8HAQ. My best guess is that the little wrigglers are slipping through the spout and that's why there are adults when I open the top. 

For those that use the nipple systems, how long did it take your chickens to figure the new system out? It is currently the middle of summer here (well, and elsewhere too) and I'm worried that they won't figure it out quickly enough and might get dehydrated and die. It's happened before when I was working and my brother did not give the chickens enough water for the day. Does that make sense?


 
@Ridgerunner
 will those dunks hurt the chickens or the bees? That's the first thing I thought of but I wasn't sure if anyone had tried them with their chickens.

@centrarchid
 the wagon is a really good idea, but I live in the city and the chicken pen is about 100 yards from my house. Would bleach work as a chlorine source to dip the founts in? And how long do you let your founts rinse/dry to make sure the chlorine doesn't hurt the chickens? Or does it not hurt them?

My pens are all more than 100 yards from house and some 100 yards from each other which has been part of reason for adopting use of a wagon. I often use a lawn tractor to pull the wagon especially when I take about 30 gallons out to rinse / fill waterers. I am not so certain if chlorine / bleach has negative health effects in its own right but feel risk is worth controlling what grows in waterers. I have not seen any evidence for harm to birds even though chlorine smell is evident when water first applied. Chickens do not seem to restrict intake when smell aparent. Some parties are much more liberal with the use of chlorine than I am and claim no health effects. You can make for a strong bleach dip, a rinse dip, then add clean water to minimize chlorine exposure for birds. Wagon platform helps with that a lot.

 

[frenchiegirl21]

My pens are all more than 100 yards from house and some 100 yards from each other which has been part of reason for adopting use of a wagon. I often use a lawn tractor to pull the wagon especially when I take about 30 gallons out to rinse / fill waterers. I am not so certain if chlorine / bleach has negative health effects in its own right but feel risk is worth controlling what grows in waterers. I have not seen any evidence for harm to birds even though chlorine smell is evident when water first applied. Chickens do not seem to restrict intake when smell aparent. Some parties are much more liberal with the use of chlorine than I am and claim no health effects. You can make for a strong bleach dip, a rinse dip, then add clean water to minimize chlorine exposure for birds. Wagon platform helps with that a lot.

Thank you for that info. It seems to make sense that the chlorine wouldn't hurt the chickens since they use chlorine in normal drinking water to prevent microbial growth. Do you have any advice on amount of bleach/gallon of water for the dip or is that pretty much up to me?

 

[centrarchid]

Voodoo approach I use. A table spoon of bleach is added to a 5-gallon bucket, then fill about 2/3 full with tap water. Chlorine mixed by commotion of transport to pen area. My patch are bumby. Dirty waterers are then swished before dumping, then immersed in bleach laced water for just a few seconds. Then rinse waterer with some straight tap followed by adding more for birds to drink.

 

[Luke 13V34]

In the Texas sun, the water would probably get too hot and your chickens wouldn't want to drink it, so I think keeping it in the shade would be best. I live in Ohio, and I still keep mine in the shade for that reason. We had 7 inches of rain the last 21 days of June, so we have had our share of mosquito issues, but they finish their water before they get in there.

Don't worry about the rude people on here. As is the case on any forum on any website, everyone is a tough guy behind a computer screen. There is no way any human being is going to tell a complete stranger "check your calendar" or anything else like that when asking for advice on mosquitos in their waterer. It is best to just ignore those people.


I am about to try using a much bigger waterer but it will be a closed system (nipple waterer), meaning the mosquitos will have no way of getting inside of it.