I'm so angry right now, I could spit nails. My city is going to fog our neighborhood because they found a few dead birds and mosquitos with West Nile Virus. They found them 5 miles from where I live, but have chosen to fog a HUGE region. We've had the hottest days thus far this year this past week, including a few spare the air days where they BEG us to carpool, not use gas powered equipment, etc. We're all sleeping with our window open to try and cool off our houses at night. Very few of us have central air. Anyway, what should I do with my chickens? I only have three hens. I could bring them into the house, but they would be hot in here. And they are not going to like being pulled out of their house and tucked into a dog crate. But I have no way to wrap them up tight in their house to be certain they don't inhale any of this chemical. Anyone know anything about this and have any suggestions?
I use Pyrethrin to spray my coops for mites but I never do it with the birds in the coops. I do it about mid day when they are out free ranging. My only suggestion with the heat being what it is that if your only alternative is to use the dog crate freeze two or three water bottles and put them in the carrier with your birds and bring them inside until the spraying is over. If you have a pen area what I would do is just put them in the carrier in the penned area and cover it loosely with one of those blue plastic tarps or a blanket. They will still get plenty of air and the spray will settle on the tarp or blanket. Just kind of "tent" them inside. I have used Pyrethrin for years and although I wear a mask when I spray it I am really not scared of the stuff, but add I would not spray it directly when the birds are around. I would say that after 30 minutes or so all of the mist will be out of the air and settled to the ground and then you can uncover them and put them back in. CDA.
Thanks for that posting. That puts me a bit at ease. Their house has a metal roof and above that are corrugated sheets of metal so nothing is going to settle on them. And I can close up all the vents on their house. They might be a bit warm but I suppose a minimal amount of fog would get to them. It's really challenging when you just have three hens. They are pets and have names. One was sick last week and spent the day at the vet. The thought of losing her and having to re-introduce new chicks to the flock is just not something I want to have to deal with.
We mix a Pyrethrin spray and use it directly on the chickens (especially for leg mites), goats and pigs as well as spray down the barns and coops to keep down any bugs. I never wear a mask but I am also careful not to breath it in or get it in our eyes or anything, same for the animals. We just recently used the same spray on all our trees when we discovered they were infested with a caterpillar. Everything we have read says it is safe and we have had no ill effects from it yet and good results. I might make sure the chickens were under cover so the spray settles around them and not in their faces. One would hope it was extremely safe given the untold animals (and humans) it will come in contact with but we could find out 20 years from now some horrid effect it had, like all those frogs with extra legs and such. Good Luck, I hope they at least gave you an idea of when they are spraying. Might be nice to have a mosquito free zone for a while over the hot summer!
