Pest deterring plants/nesting stuff?

[Moselle]

I'm new to chicken care - still in the planning stages. I'm wondering if there are plants that I can plant near the chicken coop to deter pests? Are there bug-deterring nesting materials? I hate the thought of mites and ticks getting at the chickens. We have a lot of those pesky red mites in our area.

 

[Wildsky]

Getting some DE will probably be a good bet!

Diatomaceous Earth. = DE

 

[Dawn419]

Moselle,

There is an article in Practical Poultry magazine (issue44-November 2007), called Carbon-zero chickens? (pg. 26-28, by Marianne Oliver).

On page 28, first column, she talks about cutting down her larger herbs (artemisias and lemon balm) and putting the branches down on her coop floor to help keep mites off of her chickens.

Other flea/mite/odor deterrent herb (aka "strewing herbs" in Roman times) are:

pennyroyal, hyssop, satolina, lavender and tansy, to name a few.

Stronger smelling herbs like wormwood and southernwood tend to be more effective.

I have lemon balm and artemisia(plants) and hyssop (seeds) if you'd be interested in growing them. Just let me know!

Dawn