Method to spread DE

[blueberrychickens]

Hmmmm.....I just dumped it into the brooder box & figure the little fuzz butts will stir it up & dust themselves w/ it @ the same time. Voila all mixed in!

 

[herefordlovinglady]

There are several reasons to use it in the coop on the shavings. It helps dry the poop so it wont stink so bad, it keeps moisture down in the coop. If the chickens have mites it gets rid of them. there are more uses for DE, a lot more uses. search for DE on here and you will find lots of threads with great info on it.

 

[dogdollar]

Quote:
DE is a desiccant....it tends to dry things out...things like poop and excess moisture (which leads to fungus). To insects, it's like walking through razor blades. It will pierce the exoskeleton and basically suck all of the juices out of a bug.

Everything in my run touches the shavings. The chickens, their poop, whatever food gets spilled....everything. To my way of thinking, "frosting" each individual shaving with DE gets it everywhere it needs to be. Since I have been doing this, I get no bad odor whatsoever from the run, and the flies are WAY down. It is also a very efficient way of using the rather expensive DE....there is literally NO waste of it. A lightly powdered surface is all the DE you need.

DD

 

[Shannon's Chix]

I throw it and run...then hold my breath while I rake it around.

Great ideas here...thanks!

 

[Sunflower01]

I took a large plastic coffe containter that has a grip handle and a plastic snap on lid and drilled holes in the lid . It holds alot of DE and works great.

 

[LarryPQ]

I just have a big mixing bowl I scoop it out with.

Then I grab big handfulls of it and work out any stress I may have by pitching it at the walls. The chooks churn it up in thier own time.

Good, clean fun.

 

[jamieg]

How often do you apply DE? Every other day or so, I've been spreading it around the coop. Is it something that should be done once a week, once a month?

 

[CarolAnn]

I've been reading on the subject of Food grade DE for a while this afternoon and finally called my husband at work to ask what he knows about it. He had his laptop on and did a quick search and read some info to me. He is familiar with it from growing up farming and it does have a lot of uses. Part of what I read was about how it helps dehydrate the chicken poop in the litter and how it kills certain bugs by dissolving the soft layer on their bodies and causes them to dry up. There was a lot more in the article I read. We're going to do some more reading and check around about where it's available in our area. I didn't do the deep litter thing now but come cold weather I 'm going to use that method to help insulate the chicken house. They put off so much heat themselves that I have been told by the friend who get her chicken house the same place I got mine that hers do just fine in winter without insulation in the side walls. Hubby said their chicken house on the farm never had the luxury of being insulated and their birds didn't freeze to death. I'm sure he wants to laugh out loud often since I got my little girls back in April. Heck, I laugh at myself at times cause I never dreamed I'd be so silly over a bunch of chickens, but I am.

 

[time4chickens]

I simply use a tea strainer with a handle. I keep the DE in a tupperware container along with the tea strainer. A few times a weeks I sprinkle the run and coop and it works great !

 

[Chook-A-Holic]

I use a flour sifter. Fill it up and squeeze the handle repeatedly while moving it around. Very easy to get an even layer spread out all over the coop floors. Then I lightly rake it in, throw some scratch or BOSS on the floor and let the chickens finish the job of working it into the shavings.