Hi all!
Lost my entire laying flock to a fox a couple weeks ago. Thankfully I have some pullets to take their place. I just finished doing a deep clean of the coop and have the pullets locked in the coop for the next few days to assimilate to their new home. During this time, I am trying to deep clean the run.
This is where the problem is. I have a pretty bad Indian Meal Moth infestation. It started because I had been feeding the chickens out of an open rubber dish because I had a cross beak chicken, who could only feed herself if she was able to eat out of a bowl. Traditional feeders didn’t work for her. This inevitably lead to a rediculous amount of food waste, and I don’t think I realized how bad it was until now. The ground of the run is dirt, but on a bit of a slope. We had a wood mulch mixed with leaves and other natural materials that worked as a deep litter method. It’s also covered, so it doesn’t get soaked when it rains, but it still can be a little damp in there when it rains, but no puddles or anything. It’s worked great, until I dug out the wooden platform I had the food bowl on (which helped to contain some of the spilt food) and there were thousands of Indian meal moths underneath. It’s pretty gross.
Basically… I’m not sure what to do from here. I plan to remove as much as the old food as possible. But it’s like compacted sand…. I don’t know that it’s possible for me to remove it all. I had planned on putting in new wood chips….. but will it be okay if I remove as much as possible and then cover with wood chips?
Is this even a big problem if the chickens eat them? Amazingly… there doesn’t seem to be mold or anything anywhere.
Any advice welcome!!
Lost my entire laying flock to a fox a couple weeks ago. Thankfully I have some pullets to take their place. I just finished doing a deep clean of the coop and have the pullets locked in the coop for the next few days to assimilate to their new home. During this time, I am trying to deep clean the run.
This is where the problem is. I have a pretty bad Indian Meal Moth infestation. It started because I had been feeding the chickens out of an open rubber dish because I had a cross beak chicken, who could only feed herself if she was able to eat out of a bowl. Traditional feeders didn’t work for her. This inevitably lead to a rediculous amount of food waste, and I don’t think I realized how bad it was until now. The ground of the run is dirt, but on a bit of a slope. We had a wood mulch mixed with leaves and other natural materials that worked as a deep litter method. It’s also covered, so it doesn’t get soaked when it rains, but it still can be a little damp in there when it rains, but no puddles or anything. It’s worked great, until I dug out the wooden platform I had the food bowl on (which helped to contain some of the spilt food) and there were thousands of Indian meal moths underneath. It’s pretty gross.
Basically… I’m not sure what to do from here. I plan to remove as much as the old food as possible. But it’s like compacted sand…. I don’t know that it’s possible for me to remove it all. I had planned on putting in new wood chips….. but will it be okay if I remove as much as possible and then cover with wood chips?
Is this even a big problem if the chickens eat them? Amazingly… there doesn’t seem to be mold or anything anywhere.
Any advice welcome!!
