DE for pest control?

[venymae]

I've heard of DE for pest control, but how well does it work, and what kind of pests? External? Internal? Both?

 

[nchls school]

I tried DE with mites. Didn't work. I still add it to their dust bath as it may have other benefits.

 

[Folly's place]

It may help to keep down the mite count, but it's VERY bad to be breathing, and I won't use it for that reason. Too little gain for the damage it can do to my lungs, and my bird's. I use permethrin dust if mites arrive (wearing a N95 dust mask!) and Ivermectin for worming and external parasite control maybe once per year. It's not approved for poultry, but is very easy to use and effective, and safe enough for me. There are very few approved products for poultry, so options are limited. Mary

 

[aart]

It can help, maybe, as preventative for external pests...when kept dry.
But won't take care of an infestation.

It's best used in feed to keep anything from proliferating while the feed is in storage.
I keep some on hand in case a bag of feed is infested, a lot of feeds already have it in there.

I use it in the bottoms of the nests under the straw and under the edges of the vinyl sheet flooring,
but take care to keep it from becoming airborne as it is a respiratory irritant for anything that breathes.

You'll see a lot of proponents of the stuff chime in with widely varying claims.

 

[blucoondawg]

I say it is a waste of money, I spent hours upon hours reading de threads on this website and made the determination that many of the people who are major proponents of the stuff really have no evidence that it does anything beneficial in the way they're using it, however there are many people who can tell you they have in fact used it and can not say it has done any good, those who have had luck with it usually used it in conjunction with permethrin dust or some other such product that more than likely is what produced the result not the de. In addition to it not being overly effective against chicken mites and the fact that it can be an irritant when inhaled, it will kill the beneficial insects that are helping your bedding to compost which you don't want if you are trying to go for the deep litter method

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

It may help to keep down the mite count, but it's VERY bad to be breathing, and I won't use it for that reason.  Too little gain for the damage it can do to my lungs, and my bird's.  I use permethrin dust if mites arrive (wearing a N95 dust mask!) and Ivermectin for worming and external parasite control maybe once per year.  It's not approved for poultry, but is very easy to use and effective, and safe enough for me.  There are very few approved products for poultry, so options are limited.  Mary

agree, I use a pyrethrin based poultry and garden dust for external parasites and nothing for internal.

 

[JohnSteve]

I have not heard about DE for pest control yet.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Diatomaceous earth, Pretty much useless. Permethrin spray works