How to get rid of spiders, bugs, insects in the chicken coop?

[Jemma Rider]

Okay so yesterday i was out in the chicken yard and i opened the coop to collect eggs and sitting on the wall was a wolf spider i swear was three to four inches wide. I mistook it as a brown recluse as i am arachnophobic and often assume the worse, and ran to get somebody to kill it for me. By the time i returned it had retreated into the space between the roof and the raftors.
I knew there were spiders and bugs and gross things in my coop but I've never seen something as large as that spider and i want them all gone. The corners of my run are full of spiders webs that i knock down daily but they just keep coming back, my coop is the worst though. I'm hoping to power wash it out later today but i need a more permanent solution i can't clean my coop properly with those things lurking above my head. Also there are pincher bugs breeding all around and in my coop (i believe they are called earwigs?), which doesn't make sense to me because they like damp places to hide and my coop is very dry and as clean as i can keep it. They are just the most disgusting things, and they come out at night the ground is covered in them after dark. I want to get rid of the things but i don't want to possibly poison my chickens with traditional pest control.
I need to get rid of the spiders at least, i have baby chicks who will be moving in, in about four weeks and that means more poop, which means more cleaning and i can't get myself to climb in my coop if those things are lurking, it can be hard to imagine but i am physically incapable of going in that coop with spiders that big around.
Any advice is appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

Obviously your chickens are lazy, they should be eating the bugs...

Good luck

Gary

 

[CutieChicken]

I suspect the spiders are there because there are lots of bugs for them to eat. They are actually probably doing you a favor. Sounds like there’d be a lot more bugs around if you didn’t have the spiders You could maybe try spreading some diatomecous earth around the edges of your coop/run area to try to combat the earwigs. I know there’s some debate about using it with chickens, so use your own discretion on that. Maybe if you got the bug population down, though, the spiders would leave, too.

 

[Acre4Me]

Good Luck - I feel your pain - I'm no fan of spiders either.

We had a house that had these awful and hairy large black spiders that *luckily* stayed ground level (meaning they didn't climb the walls or perch in upper corners), but they did climb the stairs occasionally - and I mean INSIDE our house. They has a nest outside our front door somewhere I believe. We had little kids at the time but NEEDED to rid ourselves of these creatures as they were coming in 1 or 2 or 3 or more a day (I can't count how many of these things I killed). Anyway, we found that spraying the household pest sprays heavily around the front door (drenched and running on the outside of the house) in a 6"wide swath helped immensely. We would spray at night, let it dry overnight and monitor. In the fall, when the hairy things were looking for warmth, we sprayed again and added the interior door jam and a wider exterior swath. The good things about these sprays is they work when they are dry and they seem to provide a barrier to the bugs looking to cross the threshold. I never saw a dead spider from the spray, so I think it primarily deters them once dry. End of our hairy spider story: we ended up replacing our front walk for a better layout and better drainage and it must have removed their nest as there were far fewer of these nasty hairy things after the walkway replacement.

You might try spraying the interior of your coop on the areas the birds do not access, like the upper ridges and roofline. Do this on a non-windy day and lock the birds out of the coop for the day to give the pest spray time to dry. Cover their roosts if you think the spray might get on the roosts and you don't want the birds exposed to the spray when dry. This will keep the spiders off of the upper areas, but they may just end up staying lower in the coop - if they have earwigs to eat, then they will be where the food is. As for the lower half of your coop, I'll leave others to chime in on what to do.

 

[Jemma Rider]

I suspect the spiders are there because there are lots of bugs for them to eat. They are actually probably doing you a favor. Sounds like there’d be a lot more bugs around if you didn’t have the spiders You could maybe try spreading some diatomecous earth around the edges of your coop/run area to try to combat the earwigs. I know there’s some debate about using it with chickens, so use your own discretion on that. Maybe if you got the bug population down, though, the spiders would leave, too.

It didn't occur to me that the bugs could be attracting the spiders, I wish i could just leave them and let them take care of the bugs but i can't do anything with them around i am petrified that one is going to drop down in my hair or my back like in India Jones.

 

[Jemma Rider]

Good Luck - I feel your pain - I'm no fan of spiders either.

We had a house that had these awful and hairy large black spiders that *luckily* stayed ground level (meaning they didn't climb the walls or perch in upper corners), but they did climb the stairs occasionally - and I mean INSIDE our house. They has a nest outside our front door somewhere I believe. We had little kids at the time but NEEDED to rid ourselves of these creatures as they were coming in 1 or 2 or 3 or more a day (I can't count how many of these things I killed). Anyway, we found that spraying the household pest sprays heavily around the front door (drenched and running on the outside of the house) in a 6"wide swath helped immensely. We would spray at night, let it dry overnight and monitor. In the fall, when the hairy things were looking for warmth, we sprayed again and added the interior door jam and a wider exterior swath. The good things about these sprays is they work when they are dry and they seem to provide a barrier to the bugs looking to cross the threshold. I never saw a dead spider from the spray, so I think it primarily deters them once dry. End of our hairy spider story: we ended up replacing our front walk for a better layout and better drainage and it must have removed their nest as there were far fewer of these nasty hairy things after the walkway replacement.

You might try spraying the interior of your coop on the areas the birds do not access, like the upper ridges and roofline. Do this on a non-windy day and lock the birds out of the coop for the day to give the pest spray time to dry. Cover their roosts if you think the spray might get on the roosts and you don't want the birds exposed to the spray when dry. This will keep the spiders off of the upper areas, but they may just end up staying lower in the coop - if they have earwigs to eat, then they will be where the food is. As for the lower half of your coop, I'll leave others to chime in on what to do.

That could work, they free range all day and after they lay any eggs they don't come back until night. And that's mostly where they are is in the top of the coop which is weird because I've only seen bugs around the bottom of the coop.
Thanks!

 

[LittleMissCountry]

It is really hard to kill spiders without direct contact. I don't mind spiders as long as they are not poisonous, but that doesn't mean I want them crawling on me! I had two huge orb weavers that took uo residence in the top of my coop, and I noticed the fly and gnat population dropped considerably so I left them there. Just yesterday one of their egg sacs hatched, and even though I am not scared of spiders it is a little unnerving to reach into the coop to get eggs or clean, knowing that their are baby spiders everywhere!

We have a lot of black widows here, so I am paranoid about one of those getting in and building a web.

 

[Jemma Rider]

It is really hard to kill spiders without direct contact. I don't mind spiders as long as they are not poisonous, but that doesn't mean I want them crawling on me! I had two huge orb weavers that took uo residence in the top of my coop, and I noticed the fly and gnat population dropped considerably so I left them there. Just yesterday one of their egg sacs hatched, and even though I am not scared of spiders it is a little unnerving to reach into the coop to get eggs or clean, knowing that their are baby spiders everywhere!

We have a lot of black widows here, so I am paranoid about one of those getting in and building a web.

We have black widows here too, I've read that they aren't aggressive but i still don't want them around to take the chance. We also have the brown recluse and if i remember my research right they are the only two venomous spiders in Maryland who's venom affects humans. the brown recluse are also aggressive if i remember right, but they're also a lot rarer then the black widow which gives me a little peace of mind. I think my chickens are actually scared of the bigger ones, when they see the big wolf spider that still manages to avoid getting smushed they use an alert call and just stare at it until i come out. The things body is at least as big as my roosters head, which is saying something. And if remember correctly though non-venomous they have a nasty bite and i worry my rooster will do something stupid and get bit. I need to get up there to clean the vents but i just can't so I've been leaving the screened windows open.
And then in the run all of the corners have nests and I'm just trying to get the eggs away with a stick or something but they keep coming back.

 

[LittleMissCountry]

We have black widows here too, I've read that they aren't aggressive but i still don't want them around to take the chance. We also have the brown recluse and if i remember my research right they are the only two venomous spiders in Maryland who's venom affects humans. the brown recluse are also aggressive if i remember right, but they're also a lot rarer then the black widow which gives me a little peace of mind. I think my chickens are actually scared of the bigger ones, when they see the big wolf spider that still manages to avoid getting smushed they use an alert call and just stare at it until i come out. The things body is at least as big as my roosters head, which is saying something. And if remember correctly though non-venomous they have a nasty bite and i worry my rooster will do something stupid and get bit. I need to get up there to clean the vents but i just can't so I've been leaving the screened windows open.
And then in the run all of the corners have nests and I'm just trying to get the eggs away with a stick or something but they keep coming back.

I haven't seen many brown recluses here in Virginia either, but we just moved almost a year ago. Where I grew up, in the midwest, brown recluses were everywhere! They were not aggressive unless you touched them. I was bit on the hand by one, and luckily saw the spider and got treatment right away. It was in the pocket of a coat I hadn't worn in a while, and bit me when I put my hand in the pocket.

 

[Ginmary]

Orb weavers are the best! They do not leave their web. Most of the time they stay directly in the middle. When not there they are hiding at one of the edges where they run to if scared or during the day when the web is down. They completely rebuild their web each night and they are beautiful creations. We had one in our hall and left it (kind of made it one of the pets...) There are many varieties and are rather pretty (for a spider)

The babies should disappear on their own. They need to spin their "kites" and have the wind take them to their own territory. They do not usually stay where they hatch.