Preventing mosquito bites?

[welovechickens]

Is there anything I can feed my chickens to make them less "tasty" for mosquitoes? Is there anything I can use in their coop to help reduce the mosquitoes? I know moving air is good, but will something like diatomaceous earth work, or is there really nothing safe that works well?

I hate seeing my baby with these fowl pox lumps on her little face.

Of course I have many mosquito bites on my arms, myself....I can only imagine what it feels like to the chickens! Ick.

 

[Renee]

Spray DEET around the openings of the coop?

 

[Judy]

Sounds like you need to research mosquito prevention and control.

Eliminate any standing water, as in containers sitting around the yard. Discs in places like ponds to kill the larvae, and fish in ponds to eat the larvae, are effective, but are not going to eliminate them. SkinSoSoft (from Avon) (SSS) to repel them from you and your chickens is good; wet a cotton ball or something similar with SSS, and wipe it down their mid backs at dusk. There are some very effective personal electronic devices around now, but they are only intended for short term management on a person, such as for a hunting or camping trip, and of course they eat batteries. Some other equipment that helps are CO2 emitters, powered by house power or propane gas. Citronella oil may help if applied to surfaces, but is evidently not that effective if burned, as in a citronella lamp. Bat or purple martin houses could help. I am sure there are other effective approaches I did not think of, or do not know about.

Some chickens are good at catching them and eating them. You are not going to eradicate them, but you can reduce the numbers greatly. If you have a lot of bites, you need to start attacking them. They can carry disease....

Hopefully, more good ideas will come along here....