Well the chicks seem fine, it's my husband and I that are hacking away. It is just the de perma guard food grade fossil flour.
I'm thinking possibly we are sensitive to it, which is disappointing b/c I will probably end up having to clean the whole coop out, and just keep it on hand to use very minimally.
After reading all the other threads on DE here I just can't imagine that I really over did it that badly - I threw in a light/regular dusting, about a cup per 10 sq feet - which seems about like what
some others do here. Raked it in lightly to try to get it lower into the ground and then covered it with more litter. I wanted to spread out well and sorta bury it, so it wouldn't get kicked up so bad (no huge chunks near the surface). I did not toss or throw any, and wore a face mask but it is still just too dry even after all the precautions I took. There weren't any dust clouds of it or anything either.
I did this as a preventative measure for ticks, mites, lice etc. Having never kept chickens or livestock I suppose I jumped the gun a bit because to be honest I was not sure in the first place how preventative one needs to be for those issues. The real question I should ask now is, how easy is it for outdoor chickens that have a dirt floor coop and free range to have these problems? They are too young right now to be broody, so maybe I had nothing to worry about in the first place. There are only 9 in the coop and it is fairly clean. I don't know much about pests like mites and such but would assume they thrive in wet/dirty conditions or when a chicken is not moving, is this correct?
I found this post in another thread trying to research it more this morning, so perhaps I'm not alone. I think I will do what she did and leave it to the dustbath and on as-needed basis if a chicken or the coop actually gets infested with bugs...
I heard so much great stuff about DE that we got some (Food Grade) and put some in with pine shavings on the coop floor. I'm the coop cleaner, so I pick up the poops each morning, but don't really disturb the litter. I had this weird thing where when I'd take a deep breath I'd start coughing, but I wasn't sick. And not just when I was in the coop. It lasted maybe a month until my husband put 2&2 together, decided it was the DE causing it. He went and cleaned the whole coop out, put in new litter (no DE this time), and lo and behold the breathing problem thing was gone like overnight.
And I knew ahead that you're not supposed to breathe in DE, and it wasn't like I was throwing it around and inhaling it or anything.
So Plan B is I want to make a sandbox (outside the coop) for them to dust bathe in, with dirt, sand, and some DE mixed in. Hopefully the girls will use it instead of making holes all around the yard for unsuspecting humans to trip in.
As to how often to use it, maybe refresh it every month or so? I think its "staying power" is long, unless it gets wet? (But I do not claim to be an expert on DE at all...)
Would appreciate any other DE users thoughts.
Now my dilemma is whether to keep misting the coop and hoping it tones it down or compost all the wood chips and go buy some more (ugh).
