Is it necessary to dust in the winter?

[meadrian]

Gee, I caught it. Made me want to just keep on posting on this thread. It's just such a welcoming feeling, you know?

 

[JAMcG]

What is DE? I want to try this for my flock.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

The problem is that the vast majority of folks, not to mention scientific evidence, do NOT find DE to be a wonder cure. A new person gets on here and sees all sorts of posts ravingf about DE and says to themselves "WOW! Now I know how to prevent my birds from ever having mite or lice issues." Those of us who are at best not convinced of its effectiveness could just sit back and think "they'll learn, why should I stick my neck out and contradict a common opinion, even if I believe it to be wrong?" Or we could respond with our opinions.

DE may help prevent an infestation. If WILL NOT cure one.

Winter is often the time that mites/lice thrive; however, different pests tend to occur and become an issue during different seasons, not to mention some are more common to one area of the country than to others. There are a number of different insecticides/miticides other than sevin that are effective at killing these external parasites. Alternating between different ones that are effective against the bugs common to your area helps prevent them from developing a resistance. There are some productas that either kill eggs or contain an insect growth regulator that prevents non-adults from maturing and repopulating.

 

[meadrian]

That was my understanding. DE may help prevent, but once you have them, it does not cure. That's when you use the insecticide. I like to do this the way I like my health care...least invasive first and work my way up as needed. However, as soon as my birds were infected I went for the Poultry Dust. I figure I can try whatever I want when there's no infestation, but once one occures, I don't want to mess around trying different things while they suffer. I just want to take care of it.