natural pest deterrent?

[Pinky Macgyver]

Hey,
I was thinking of making a mixture of things like lemon, nutmeg, wormwood and pyrethrum to spray around my coop as an insect and spider repellent. What do you think? Would this work? I don't have a bug problem at the moment, just a couple of spiders in the roof, but I want to make sure I don't have an issue with them later.
Are any of these things bad for chickens? What should I use as a base, water, or alcohol? Anything else that would be helpful to add?

 

[centrarchid]

For me, spiders will not be abundant unless insects are abundant. Most insects will not benefit from chickens since chickens destroy insect habitat and directly consume insects. Insects as a food are superior to any store purchased feed you can get. Chickens will also consume spiders, even of the poisonus varieties. Insects likely to be the exception are flies that come to consume feed as adults and wet feed as larvae. You can manage against the larval stages by minimizing feed deposits that are wet but adults are much more difficult. Adult flies I have are coming mostly from a neighboring farm with horses where larvae have lots of suitable habitat but adults find my poultry feed more attractive. Dry years flies are easy to manage but during wet they are very difficult at best,

 

[centrarchid]

For me, spiders will not be abundant unless insects are abundant. Most insects will not benefit from chickens since chickens destroy insect habitat and directly consume insects. Insects as a food are superior to any store purchased feed you can get. Chickens will also consume spiders, even of the poisonus varieties. Insects likely to be the exception are flies that come to consume feed as adults and wet feed as larvae. You can manage against the larval stages by minimizing feed deposits that are wet but adults are much more difficult. Adult flies I have are coming mostly from a neighboring farm with horses where larvae have lots of suitable habitat but adults find my poultry feed more attractive. Dry years flies are easy to manage but during wet they are very difficult at best,

 

[Pinky Macgyver]

Hmm, I guess I'm mostly thinking about mites etc. And the spiders so I don't get em in my hair when I go into the comp to get the egg

 

[centrarchid]

I seldom have issues with mites because birds routinely dust bath. I would look into making so dust bathing option is available at all times. My birds seem to prefer a loose silt-loam for bathing and I have been adding ashes / charcoal in the assumption it provideds some anti-mite activity. If mites are of sort that can range away from birds in coop and on roost then other methods I do not employ should be sought. Natural for me is having birds roost in tree with good access to dust.

 

[Pinky Macgyver]

They have lots of space for dust baths. I have holes all over my once-was-a-garden.
So are we really saying this is a bad idea? That I shouldn't do anything to prevent mites, just see if it happens??
It's no effort to make up a spray and in fact I'm interested to try it, not looking for ways to avoid it... I'm sure it couldn't hurt to be extra safe. Unless what I'm proposing would be bad for the chickens, which was my question...

 

[centrarchid]

Have you seen mites?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I don't see anything in your formula that would be harmful to chickens. I'd not spray a Nutmeg solution in there eyes mind you but all seems harmless. The thing maybe Centerarchid is wondering is why would you bother if there are no mites and you already have dust baths readily available to them?

To prevent from something you've never seen is akin to that old Simpson's show where Lisa tells Homer she has a magic pebble that will ward off tigers. He asks if it works and she replies "You don't see any tigers around do you?" To her embarrassment Homer immediately offers to buy the rock.

 

[Pinky Macgyver]

Gee thanks for making me feel like an idiot guys...

 

[Pinky Macgyver]

And no, haven't seen any but I'm partially blind so I wouldn't..