- Jun 19, 2013
- 4
- 0
- 7
Today I moved my 5 week old chicks from the garage to an outside pen. It was in the shade, plenty of water, and food, nothing in the grass or sprayed on the grass. I noticed that there were a lot of gnats swarming around while I set everything up but I didn't think it was a big deal. I put them out and watched them for a while. Evan sat inside the pen with them. There were an number of gnats but it didn't seem like that big of deal. I checked on them a hour later and they were all smooshed in the corner like they were sleeping. When I looked closer I could see the gnats were really swarming them. So I got a box fan and hung it about 10 inches off the ground to keep the bugs off of them. The air was blowing above them but not right on them. I also put out a pan of vinegar outside the pen to kill the gnats. It seemed to work. I don't remember if I checked them after that but at 4:00 I went out to check on them and 8 of the 13 were dead. They were totally covered in gnats and since they were dead several flies were on them too.
I did a search here for gnats and saw several posts saying buffalo gnats had killed other folks adult birds too. When I checked my birds over I noticed several had little red bites under their wings and a couple had bites on their faces.
I had the new pen set up at 10 and at 4 the majority of my chicks were dead. I am totally devastated. GNATS WILL KILL YOUR BIRDS!!! Please don't let this happen to you. For some reason they are particularly bad this year. They actually bite the birds. I have had chickens for over 5 years now and I never knew this was a danger. In 6 hours I killed 8 of my chicks. I'm not sure if the remaining 5 will make it.
I did a search here for gnats and saw several posts saying buffalo gnats had killed other folks adult birds too. When I checked my birds over I noticed several had little red bites under their wings and a couple had bites on their faces.
I had the new pen set up at 10 and at 4 the majority of my chicks were dead. I am totally devastated. GNATS WILL KILL YOUR BIRDS!!! Please don't let this happen to you. For some reason they are particularly bad this year. They actually bite the birds. I have had chickens for over 5 years now and I never knew this was a danger. In 6 hours I killed 8 of my chicks. I'm not sure if the remaining 5 will make it.