Oregon Fall Poultry Swap - October 22 - Corvallis @ the Fairgrounds!!!

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I know what you mean...it's so hard to get rid of them once you have them. They live in the wood and it's near impossible to rid the coop of them. I'm going to be painting the inside of my coop this summer to see if I can seal some cracks, but I'm sure I'll still have them. Just too many wild birds in the area...and I've always used Sevin. The poultry dust I bought at the feed store is useless, not sure what it has in it, but it didn't do anything. The people at Home Depot looked at me pretty strange when I bought 20 cans of Sevin last summer. The guy said "bug problems?" I said "you have no idea"
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Has anyone tried DE? (food-grade, Diatomaceous Earth) I haven't tried yet,
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but read some good things about it. It is supposed to be good for those creepy crawly things.
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I haven't bought any yet, but it doesn't seem to be too expensive. Let me know if you have tried it.
Thanks,
Paula
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So I posted a thread and am not really getting a ton of response so I thought I'd try you guys for advice. I have four birds that are about 3months old and are bossing everyone around in the coop.
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The other birds are 8-10 wks old. I actually lost a girl today and I think it's because she didn't get enough to eat because she was being bullied.
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I''m really bummed because she was one of the birds I got from the swap and she was really lovely. I didn't have her long enough to really know her behaviour. I guess I should've waited to introduce them?
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I'm torn because I've had them the longest but I don't want to keep aggressive birds. I'm seriously at a loss. I'm just glad I have Gloria. She's the same size as them and she's protecting the slightly smaller birds but they're all still getting bossed around. What should I do?
 
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Are you able to put up a divider (wire, something like that) so they can see but not actually get to each other? That usually helps to get them used to being around the others without fears of pecking or bullying. If that doesn't work or you don't have the ability to put up a divider, you might have to make a temporary area for them. I ended up putting Babette and Nuria in a brooder with some much younger girls just because they were so mellow the other pullets in their age group were really picking on them. They love being in with the speckled sussex and BCM pullets (who are about 2 months younger!).
 
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Are you able to put up a divider (wire, something like that) so they can see but not actually get to each other? That usually helps to get them used to being around the others without fears of pecking or bullying. If that doesn't work or you don't have the ability to put up a divider, you might have to make a temporary area for them. I ended up putting Babette and Nuria in a brooder with some much younger girls just because they were so mellow the other pullets in their age group were really picking on them. They love being in with the speckled sussex and BCM pullets (who are about 2 months younger!).

I agree...a divider would be best. Sorry you lost one
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Glad to hear those two are being nice to the little ones, lol they never did that here! I put my Sizzle Leghorn in with them and they were ruthless!
 
Back on the lice/mites thing, I use Eprinex pour on periodically, it works as well as Ivermectin, but there is not the 14 day egg withdrawl. I also use Sevin whenever I see bugs on them, and REALLY dump it into the shavings in the nest boxes, since that's where the girls "sit" the longest besides the roosts. The two work great together. The "poultry dust" you can get at the feed store doesn't do diddly squat, I had a BAD mite problem when I was using that, before I switched to the other two products.

DE is meant to keep a problem from happening, be desiccating the eggs, etc in the bedding, I don't use it hardly ever any more, though I do keep it around just in case. I once bought 4 Silkie chicks that were COVERED in lice, I mixed some Sevin with DE in a big butter container and stuck the chicks in it, flipped it all over them, problem solved. The Sevin alone would've done the same thing, but I wasn't sure about putting that much straight Sevin on a 4 week old chick. now I would probably just do it.
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Are you able to put up a divider (wire, something like that) so they can see but not actually get to each other? That usually helps to get them used to being around the others without fears of pecking or bullying. If that doesn't work or you don't have the ability to put up a divider, you might have to make a temporary area for them. I ended up putting Babette and Nuria in a brooder with some much younger girls just because they were so mellow the other pullets in their age group were really picking on them. They love being in with the speckled sussex and BCM pullets (who are about 2 months younger!).

I agree...a divider would be best. Sorry you lost one
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Glad to hear those two are being nice to the little ones, lol they never did that here! I put my Sizzle Leghorn in with them and they were ruthless!

I always put out at least one more feeder and waterer until the dust settles. That way I know the bottom birds can get to food and water. The other thing I have done was move out the trouble makers for a few days and upset the entire applecart. I'm sorry about the little one.
 
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I put the sevin in a knee-hi hosery stocking and pat that stuff right in there. No more bugs after that. I used poultry dust on 4 silkie chicks a week old that came infested from a crazy woman who used DE by the bagful. They were fine. The vet thought they would be better off with the dusting than covered in lice. I could see they perked up as soon as those lice where eliminated. I'm not sure effective the DE actually is. And they say it's irritating to the chickens' airways.
 
We have DE and give it to the birds for their dust baths, and I think it helps, but it makes a rather small dent in the problem. My mom's flock has hardly any mites - I only saw a total of one or two on all twelve of her hens when I was over there checking them, and she hasn't used anything at all. I'm so jealous! Her birds also free range, but she's in sweet home and I guess just doesn't have the huge number of wild and migratory birds that we do?

Thankfully a few smaller hawks have been hanging around, catching a ton of the small birds giving the mites to our chickens. Rhonda and I both are thinking about building the hawks a nest and a huge "welcome home" sign! They aren't big enough to harm the chickens, except maybe a youngster, but the younger birds don't free range without supervision, and the hawks have so many tiny birds and small rabbits, squirrels and mice to eat I don't think they're interested.
 

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