Gnats

[AquaDuck]

The blood sucking kind. Biting gnats? Biting midgets? Don't know what you americans call them, but I'm sure you know which ones I mean...

The weather's been humid all summer, and there's an intense number of gnats here. There's hoards of them outside the chicken tractors where I keep the adolescent birds (feathered chicks and ducklings). The adults going loose are fine, but I'm worried about the little ones in the tractors with limited options of getting away.

How dangerous can they be? They're annoying the life out of me, but can they literally suck the life out of a feathered bird?

I'm weighing pro's and con's of keeping the adolescents outside, or taking them inside in a coop. The coop will be gnat-free, but boring, stationary and dark. Outside there's new grass every day, sunlight and tiny, annoying critters. What to do?

 

[Shadrach]

The blood sucking kind. Biting gnats? Biting midgets? Don't know what you americans call them, but I'm sure you know which ones I mean...

The weather's been humid all summer, and there's an intense number of gnats here. There's hoards of them outside the chicken tractors where I keep the adolescent birds (feathered chicks and ducklings). The adults going loose are fine, but I'm worried about the little ones in the tractors with limited options of getting away.

How dangerous can they be? They're annoying the life out of me, but can they literally suck the life out of a feathered bird?

I'm weighing pro's and con's of keeping the adolescents outside, or taking them inside in a coop. The coop will be gnat-free, but boring, stationary and dark. Outside there's new grass every day, sunlight and tiny, annoying critters. What to do?

I've not had to deal with an excessive amount of gnats fortunately but my understanding is they can kill chicks and adolescent fowl.
@mixedUPturk wrote a very interesting article on her experience with gnats and if my memory serves me there is more information in the thread she started about the problem.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/buffalo-gnats-and-what-you-need-to-know.75016/

 

[AquaDuck]

I've not had to deal with an excessive amount of gnats fortunately but my understanding is they can kill chicks and adolescent fowl.
@mixedUPturk wrote a very interesting article on her experience with gnats and if my memory serves me there is more information in the thread she started about the problem.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/buffalo-gnats-and-what-you-need-to-know.75016/

Thank you! Very interesting and highly disturbing!
From what I can decipher from google, that's not the kind of gnat I have (even gnats are bigger in America!), but another species. The ones I have are absolutely tiny, 1-2 mm, and (hopefully) less deadly.

 

[SurferchickinSB]

The blood sucking kind. Biting gnats? Biting midgets? Don't know what you americans call them, but I'm sure you know which ones I mean...

The weather's been humid all summer, and there's an intense number of gnats here. There's hoards of them outside the chicken tractors where I keep the adolescent birds (feathered chicks and ducklings). The adults going loose are fine, but I'm worried about the little ones in the tractors with limited options of getting away.

How dangerous can they be? They're annoying the life out of me, but can they literally suck the life out of a feathered bird?

I'm weighing pro's and con's of keeping the adolescents outside, or taking them inside in a coop. The coop will be gnat-free, but boring, stationary and dark. Outside there's new grass every day, sunlight and tiny, annoying critters. What to do?

I don’t know how big your tractor is, but you could always sew some window screening on the outside of it. I put screening on the outside of my chicken run and coop
hardware cloth so that mosquitoes and flies can’t get in. My run is 10’x8’ and my coop is 4’x8’with 3 small windows.

 

[AquaDuck]

I don’t know how big your tractor is, but you could always sew some window screening on the outside of it. I put screening on the outside of my chicken run and coop
hardware cloth so that mosquitoes and flies can’t get in. My run is 10’x8’ and my coop is 4’x8’with 3 small windows.

That's a good idea for smaller runs and houses. Should keep mice away from the house too! Unfortunately, my tractors aren't exactly tightly built, but it might help a little to cover what I can? I'll try it.

 

[Mybackyardpeepers]

I read online that vanilla is a good way to keep nats off the chickens. If you Google "gnats and chickens" it should come up. Good luck!

 

[Callender Girl]

They might be different than yours, but we had horrible infestations of buffalo gnats last year, and they were killing adult birds. They seemed to get inside the birds' ears and make the chickens shake their heads really hard.

Two things seemed to help -- one was the aforementioned vanilla. In fact, it didn't even have to be real vanilla (which gets pricey).

I only lost one bird (an adult Iowa Blue hen), and I used both real vanilla and a cheap vanilla body spray from a dollar store. Of course, I used bottles and bottles of it to spritz everybody. The gnats particularly attacked my dark-colored birds (like the Blue, who is really mostly black), so those birds also got wiped with vanilla-soaked cotton make-up pads.

The gnats also are not fans of strong, moving air so I set up box fans all over the place.

I like the idea of window screening. My newest coop was built with hardware cloth on the ventilation "windows" and screening on the outside (as my chickens seem to enjoy creating holes in the screens that covered their brooders).

Good luck keeping them safe!

 

[AquaDuck]

They might be different than yours, but we had horrible infestations of buffalo gnats last year, and they were killing adult birds. They seemed to get inside the birds' ears and make the chickens shake their heads really hard.

Two things seemed to help -- one was the aforementioned vanilla. In fact, it didn't even have to be real vanilla (which gets pricey).

I only lost one bird (an adult Iowa Blue hen), and I used both real vanilla and a cheap vanilla body spray from a dollar store. Of course, I used bottles and bottles of it to spritz everybody. The gnats particularly attacked my dark-colored birds (like the Blue, who is really mostly black), so those birds also got wiped with vanilla-soaked cotton make-up pads.

The gnats also are not fans of strong, moving air so I set up box fans all over the place.

I like the idea of window screening. My newest coop was built with hardware cloth on the ventilation "windows" and screening on the outside (as my chickens seem to enjoy creating holes in the screens that covered their brooders).

Good luck keeping them safe!

In their ears?! That's terrible! Gonna search the house for anything vanilla now...

 

[SurferchickinSB]

That's a good idea for smaller runs and houses. Should keep mice away from the house too! Unfortunately, my tractors aren't exactly tightly built, but it might help a little to cover what I can? I'll try it.

Maybe try mosquito netting then. I think Amazon sells them and they are pretty big.