Hardware cloth specs?

[mill-j]

I'm not sure exactly what kind of gnats these are around here, I've heard them called buffalo gnats several times. They are usually a problem in the spring, you can often see them flying around in groups, they get in your nose, eyes and hair.

They kill/harm chickens by getting in their nostrils and suffocating them as well as just plain bugging them to death.

The way I noticed the 1/4" helps was: at the height of the gnat season the chickens in the hen houses wouldn't even venture outside. The screen door on the hen house was 1/4in hardware cloth, and I noticed there were almost no gnats inside even thought they easily fit through. Later we ran out of chicken wire when building a chicken tractor and we used 1/4 hardware cloth, and once again very few problems with gnats. I know Iit sounds crazy and I have never heard of anybody else that tried it either.

@OP Yes we used to use vanilla for gnat control, just spray directly on your chickens(use a clean sprayer just for this) especially their heads. Note: this is natural and works good on humans too. But it needs to be applied regularly

 

[citykitty]

I'm not sure exactly what kind of gnats these are around here, I've heard them called buffalo gnats several times. They are usually a problem in the spring, you can often see them flying around in groups, they get in your nose, eyes and hair.

They kill/harm chickens by getting in their nostrils and suffocating them as well as just plain bugging them to death.

The way I noticed the 1/4" helps was: at the height of the gnat season the chickens in the hen houses wouldn't even venture outside. The screen door on the hen house was 1/4in hardware cloth, and I noticed there were almost no gnats inside even thought they easily fit through. Later we ran out of chicken wire when building a chicken tractor and we used 1/4 hardware cloth, and once again very few problems with gnats. I know Iit sounds crazy and I have never heard of anybody else that tried it either.

@OP Yes we used to use vanilla for gnat control, just spray directly on your chickens(use a clean sprayer just for this) especially their heads. Note: this is natural and works good on humans too. But it needs to be applied regularly

Vanilla scented chickens! Wouldn't that attract mosquitos? How do you spray them with vanilla, just put vanilla extract in a sprayer, or mix with water? Clearly newbie here.

 

[mill-j]

Straight vanilla extract(imitation works too), it doesn't take much. It doesn't attract mosquitos in my experience. I've seen it effectively used on a larger scale of several hundreds of Cornish X, with a brand new gallon sprayer of course. If I remember right a gallon lasted several weeks and possibly the whole gnat season. A backyard flock takes only a small amount. A fine mist works the best.

What's even better, it's smells great!

We don't use it as much any more, since chickens are usually smart enough to go inside at the worst part of the season. And the hardware cloth cuts down a lot on our chicken tractors.

 

[WitsEnd]

Believe it or not, we started using 1/4in hardware cloth for ALL of our chicken tractors/doors/etc. Because for some reason gnats don't seem to go through it much, and we have not had any sick/dead chickens from gnats since switching.

Hi mill-J!
I know this is an old post to be commenting on, but it made me think of what I might be up against with my chickens here in Florida. We have a tiny pest called a noseeum. They're a blood biting pest just like mosquitoes and some flies, but they are tiny and I wondered if they are the same pest as you are speaking of here in this post? I'm new to the forums and so I'm not quite sure how to figure out where you're located- if you are up north or down in my neck of the woods? Just curious!

 

[mill-j]

Hi mill-J!
I know this is an old post to be commenting on, but it made me think of what I might be up against with my chickens here in Florida. We have a tiny pest called a noseeum. They're a blood biting pest just like mosquitoes and some flies, but they are tiny and I wondered if they are the same pest as you are speaking of here in this post? I'm new to the forums and so I'm not quite sure how to figure out where you're located- if you are up north or down in my neck of the woods? Just curious!

I'm from the mid-west, so thats north of you.

As mentioned above, I think the gnats around here are called buffalo gnats. They are blood sucking bugs that can easily wipe out an entire flock in a couple of days(this happened to several people around here last year)

Hardware cloth completely eliminated our problems for several years, but last year we had a very late spring and the gnats were meaner than I have ever seen them before. We had to take additional action. I posted what worked for us here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/gnat-control.1244516/

Hopefully this helps.

 

[WitsEnd]

I'm from the mid-west, so thats north of you.

As mentioned above, I think the gnats around here are called buffalo gnats. They are blood sucking bugs that can easily wipe out an entire flock in a couple of days(this happened to several people around here last year)

Hardware cloth completely eliminated our problems for several years, but last year we had a very late spring and the gnats were meaner than I have ever seen them before. We had to take additional action. I posted what worked for us here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/gnat-control.1244516/

Hopefully this helps.

Thank you so very much! I went ahead and got 1/4" hardware cloth because I just don't wanna deal with snakes eating the chickens or mice stealing the food! I'm from Ohio originally and we had a barn back then with chicken wire. I'm excited about using the hardware cloth this time around! Thank you for the helps! I appreciate your time!!