Food grade DE - 4 chickens

[Carenm]

How much should i order? 5 lb bag? 10 lb bag?

 

[NonnasBabies]

Depending on how much you pay for shipping I would get the most I could afford. I was able to get mine at the Co-Op. It also works great in your garden also!!

Missi

 

[Carenm]

Oh - guess I will go for the larger bag then. Thanks! We just started our garden

 

[Chickielady]

DE is awesome !
We have had fantastic success with DE flour we buy at our Cenex feed store, ask your feed store to order it for you and chances are it will come in on their next shipment and you can just go pick it up.
I get DE 'flour' called food grade, for 80# it was about $25.
We make 25X25" boxes with plywood bottom and 10" high sides and add 1 sack of play sand from your home center (like Home Depot) or any clean and dry sand, add about 6 to 8 cups of the DE flour, and 1 or 2 cups pultry and vegetable dust (permethrin) and mix, keep in a dry place and your hens will love to dust bathe in it and kills all louse and mites !
A little dusting mixed in their feed and kills all worms !
Fair warning though, it is dusty, and the birds can creat a fog cloud to the point where they run around looking as if they are on fire.
Make sure you keep heat lamps and heaters clean of this flyaway dust.
It isn't the best thing to breath as it is silica, so you need a place for the dust bed that has some ventilation.
The resulting flyaway dust kills all insects that may be lurking in the henhouse, or where ever the dust lands~
And it is great in the garden !

 

[Carenm]

Thanks for the tips.

I was going to put it in the run since our dirt is mostly sand. Would that be ok? Was also going to put in in their coop on their roosts, mixed in with their shavings too.


Before ordering I will ask our feed stores that we have around here if they can order it. Good idea.

 

[nancypo]

DON'T breather it in, either!!! Use a dust mask and wash off you hand right away. Very drying. I use some on occiasion in smotthies, as it's go for bones, teeth and keeping digestive track clean. A lot of people swear by it, FOOD GRADE only! No flavor, will suspend in liquids...

 

[Robbie]

I've read a few threads on DE lately and even though I've raised chickens for several years now, I've never heard of it before. Help out my ignorance. What exactly is it and what will it do for my ladies?
Robbie

 

[fastpat]

Quote:
DE is the skeletal remains of tiny sea creatures, it isn't toxic chemically, it causes problems from the micro-irritation it can cause in the lungs and other soft tissue such as the eyes and so forth. I've not read up on the differences in food grade, beyond understanding that it is pure enough to not contain bad contaminants. I'd recommend not breathing in the food grade either, it may not be as irritating, but the irritation factor is not zero.

DE will kill many insects because it works its way in between their exoskeleton segments and cuts their soft tissue, they then bleed to death. It has the side benefit of sweetening acid soils.