Dust baths

[vpatt]

I mixed pdz and sand half and half in the floor of the coop to help with moisture and smell. I barely got it in there before the chick girls were rolling around in it like they were possessed. Well, the three younger ladies were. The two olders are much too serious. I hope this wont hurt them......I made a little bath outside for them which they scratched leaves over and then ignored.
Please tell me the pdz won't hurt them. It seems awfully dusty.

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Please tell me the pdz won't hurt them. It seems awfully dusty.

It won't hurt them.

 

[vpatt]

It won't hurt them.

Lol....thnx. It is good to know. I just scooped sand from around our house to mix with the pdz because when I decide to let them free range (they've only been here a week) they will have free access to that sand. But I really didn't think about them dusting themselves in their coop. This is the same as having a new baby!
:/

 

[dc3085]

Yard dirt can be sterilized by baking it in an oven (see http://www.ehow.com/how_8139523_sanitize-dirt.html). I'd sieve it first to remove the larger stuff, and I personally would bake it at a higher temperature on a cookie sheet.

To dc3085 : do you think this would provide safe dirt for quail? It makes sense to me, but I don't know a great deal about quail yet.

Sorry I missed this before. I'm sure that would be plenty effective to sterilize sand or soil. However while it will clean most nasties out of the soil it won't necessarily keep you safe from parasites (worms) in the future. Most parasites, some of which are disease causing spend at least part of their life in a secondary host such as a bug (ants, crickets, flies, caterpillars, etc, etc.)

 

[vpatt]

Dc, how would we deal with free ranging? I see what you are saying about parasites in soil....but won't free rangers be exposed to all that? Do they develop resistance? Maybe I am misunderstanding something. I do have access to wood ashes.

 

[dc3085]

Chickens are pretty resistant to most parasites and a lot of diseases so it isn't much of a problem for them unless they happen to have a weak immune system for some other reason or encounter some particularly nasty strain. Quail have a much weaker immune system.

 

[vpatt]

Chickens are pretty resistant to most parasites and a lot of diseases so it isn't much of a problem for them unless they happen to have a weak immune system for some other reason or encounter some particularly nasty strain. Quail have a much weaker immune system. 

I see.....that is good to know. Thank you!

 

[Sill]

Has anyone used clean cat litter or the chinchilla dust bath you can buy at pet stores?

Some chinchilla "dust" is OK to use as it's made not to aerosolize into the air to keep your home dust free. It would be good for indoor pet quail. However it is very expensive and if your quail are outdoors you would be better off using play sand.

We have a pet leopard gecko - it's in an aquarium with reptile substrate as the flooring. Can I use this for their dust bath? OK , well I did... they LOVE it! Then I thought what if it isn't good for them? Is it OK to keep using it?

It should work fine.

Dc, how would we deal with free ranging? I see what you are saying about parasites in soil....but won't free rangers be exposed to all that? Do they develop resistance? Maybe I am misunderstanding something. I do have access to wood ashes.

Quail don't free range well. They don't go back to a coop at night. They also taste as good to predators as they do to us so would get eaten quickly by pretty much anything larger than them that eats meat.

Wood ash is good to add to their dust bath.

 

[jazzybio13]

Sorry I missed this before. I'm sure that would be plenty effective to sterilize sand or soil. However while it will clean most nasties out of the soil it won't necessarily keep you safe from parasites (worms) in the future. Most parasites, some of which are disease causing spend at least part of their life in a secondary host such as a bug (ants, crickets, flies, caterpillars, etc, etc.)  

Couldn't ya just pressure cook it though... I mean with added heat and pressure I'd imagine it's more than enough to kill off some pretty nasty things... It's pretty much a miniature autoclave. I'd trust it. Even parasites would get zapped with that. 10-15 psi for at least 20min sounds fine to me.

 

[Sill]

I think what Don is saying is that if they are on the ground even if you have sterilized the soil you will get a migration of parasites.

If you are just using the soil for dust baths and the quail are on wire then the sterilized soil is worth using since they won't have access to anything that might invade the ground soil.