krissy2h2t
In the Brooder
- Aug 31, 2015
- 3
- 0
- 14
Hi! We are new to backyard chickens, and new to being "country folk!" We are loving it so far!! We have 5 girls who are fairly young (about 13 weeks old) who haven't started laying yet. I've searched this site for so many things so far! I figured it was finally time to join. We've made it through discerning whether or not we had roosters in the bunch, dealing with pooping in the nest boxes, wanting to roost on top of the coop instead of IN the coop and one lady having a very hurt leg. Everyone is back to normal and doing well, but today as I was cleaning the coop I noticed a flea. Upon closer inspection, there were a few more but none on the girls. I have been using DE, and they've had a few dust baths with an ash, sand and DE combo. Upon finding the flea(s), I gave them all another dust bath after thoroughly cleaning the cage with a vinegar water mixture, coating the wood with barn lime and DE and then lining the bottom with hay. We live in Minnesota so planning on doing the layering deal (DLM) this winter. The coop floor is grass (we have one of those coops that has the fenced in run and on top there's the roosting bars/nesting boxes.) The coop is fairly small but every morning they are allowed out to free range so they're basically just in there to sleep. So we move the coop around when it gets dirty and start fresh. I'm just paranoid that I'm doing something wrong. After putting the hay in, I read here that that's a stupid idea because mites and fleas live in it, and come to see a few of these on me and in the coop after spending the day cleaning. They seem much smaller than the fleas I saw earlier but they can jump. HELP 
