Newbies here, so excuse the post if is seems repetitious. My husband and I purchased our first chicks (24) 10 days ago. We have built a new chicken coop 12 x 26 with 12 x 16 for the chicken area. With the baby chicks, we purchased bales of straw to section off an area for them to stay in until they got a little bigger. For bedding, we used pine shavings. All was well until we discovered that the purchased bales of straw are FULL OF CHIGGERS! Obviously, we are destroying the straw today and recleaning the chicken area. Any ideas as to what to put down on the floor to kill any leftover mites? What should we clean the floor with (husband was going to scrub the floor with a soap/hot water/bleach mixture)? Probably the chicks have mites on them too, however I haven't gotten all that close to them for the past 48 hours as I am covered with about 500 chigger bites. I have been reading about DE (food grade) and sevin dust. I too am afraid of the sevin dust, but want to kill any remaining pests that might hatch and drop off baby chicks. How old do baby chicks have to be to have a dusting area - and is there such a thing as a dusting area or does that just mean DE added to pine shavings on the floor? Sorry for the long post, but want to do this right, THIS TIME. Appreciate all and any help!
