jgessentials
Chirping
Hello,
Thank you to this great community, I have learned so much from reading your precious articles.
I wanted to share a little bit about our experience with fleas and chickens.
A few months ago we noticed with horror that a rat had found its way into our chicken run and nade a nest underneath the coop.
Our set up is simple:
We have a fully enclosed dog run doubled with chicken wire and inside we placed a small chicken coop.
Our little Bantams are free to explore the outside of the run during the day and we close it up at night. We have grey fox and racoons in our backyard at night.
Getting back to our unwelcome rat story. I set a trap in the run at night caught it and brought it to a field a few miles away. Problem solved!
Well not really. Little did we realize that our little friend came with his own friends and they started to attack our hens. It took us a while to notice but when they all looked like they were wearing mascara (lines of fleas stuck to their eyelids) then we knew we had to do something...
What we did:
Changed all the bedding.
Sprayed it down with PoultryZyne from Natural Ginesis - I still spray their bedding with it every day.
Wiped/sprayed our chickens down with the same PZyme, using cotton balls around their eyes. They hated it but the flea makeup was gone within 24 hours.
Spread beneficial nematodes in our yard 1/3 acre + in their run - got those from Arbico
These two together made a major difference.
Now I continue to spray the PZyme in their coop daily.
I also decided to switch Diatomaceous earth with another product that is not silica-based. I spread this in the coop when I change the bedding and also spread it in their dust baths. It's called First Saturday Lime lots of people seems to like it over DE. I was able to get a 20% rebate with code BETTER - sharing it here in case it still works for you.
Anyway, I am happy to report that fleas are now very rare, our hens are back to enjoying the yard instead of scratching themselves for hours...
Hope this helps!
Thank you to this great community, I have learned so much from reading your precious articles.
I wanted to share a little bit about our experience with fleas and chickens.
A few months ago we noticed with horror that a rat had found its way into our chicken run and nade a nest underneath the coop.
Our set up is simple:
We have a fully enclosed dog run doubled with chicken wire and inside we placed a small chicken coop.
Our little Bantams are free to explore the outside of the run during the day and we close it up at night. We have grey fox and racoons in our backyard at night.
Getting back to our unwelcome rat story. I set a trap in the run at night caught it and brought it to a field a few miles away. Problem solved!
Well not really. Little did we realize that our little friend came with his own friends and they started to attack our hens. It took us a while to notice but when they all looked like they were wearing mascara (lines of fleas stuck to their eyelids) then we knew we had to do something...
What we did:
Changed all the bedding.
Sprayed it down with PoultryZyne from Natural Ginesis - I still spray their bedding with it every day.
Wiped/sprayed our chickens down with the same PZyme, using cotton balls around their eyes. They hated it but the flea makeup was gone within 24 hours.
Spread beneficial nematodes in our yard 1/3 acre + in their run - got those from Arbico
These two together made a major difference.
Now I continue to spray the PZyme in their coop daily.
I also decided to switch Diatomaceous earth with another product that is not silica-based. I spread this in the coop when I change the bedding and also spread it in their dust baths. It's called First Saturday Lime lots of people seems to like it over DE. I was able to get a 20% rebate with code BETTER - sharing it here in case it still works for you.
Anyway, I am happy to report that fleas are now very rare, our hens are back to enjoying the yard instead of scratching themselves for hours...
Hope this helps!
