Poultry dust and DE

[helkat]

Today I got something similar (I hope) to poultry dust called Gordon's Dairy & Livestock Dust (permethrin and says it can be used on poultry). I also ordered a 50# bag of food grade DE the other night.

I have never seen any mites/bugs/lice on the chickens, but want to dust just in case.

What would be my best course of action with these? Do I clean out the coop, lay new straw and then sprinkle the permethrin dust?

When I get the DE, if I put it in a shallow feed tub will the chickens go in to dust themselves?

Fill me in!

Thanks!

 

[teach1rusl]

I'm kind of wondering how that works too, so I'll be watching for replies....

 

[threehorses]

That's the stuff. Permethrin dust goes by a bunch of different names, usually with some reference to gardens, dust, mites, livestock, or poultry.

Best course of action - scrape bedding aside, put a little of both - kind of stir into the dirt if you have dirt there. Replace bedding, sprinkle both on top - stir in. Apply to nestboxes under the bedding there.

Bird use: glove up, put some of the dust in your gloved hand, use that to apply to the bird. I found using the shaker can right on the bird wasted half of the powder. Shaking it into your hand, and then using the hand to ruffle the powder into the feathers is much more efficient. Also WAY less dusty. Only use the permethrin for this.

On the DE, you never want to see it - so putting it in a feed tub is just too much. If you use the food application (using food-grade as you are) you use less than 2% total food weight (not volume) in DE. For example - if you're using 10 pounds of feed, use 0.2 pounds of DE mixed in the feed. You don't want to see it on top - it needs to be stirred in. Because DE is essentially a sharp microscopic piece of fossil, it's particularly important that the birds breathe it as little as possible. My rule is "if you still see it when you're doing applying, it's too much". That's also why we don't dust birds with it.

However, get some good play-sand or other sandy dirt and put that in a tub - mix some DE in with that. Or just use the DE straight in the areas where you know the dust bathe a lot.

I really love more natural methods of doing things, but of course I know where to draw the line. I think there's a beautiful sort of partnership between these two products - DE allowing for permethrin to hopefully not be used as often, permethrin taking care of problems if things get too out of hand.

 

[SmellyCat]

Please use EXTREME caution w/ any pernethrin products if you have cats!!! It will send them almost immediately into a horrible and fatal seizure. Dogs are not affected but it is lethal to cats in even the tiniest quantity.