Question about diatomaceous earth

[jjdward]

Is DE all it's cracked up to be? I mean I've heard that it is the best thing since sliced bread. Everything from killing mites to de-worming to cake receipts. I don't know, it just seems too good to be true! My flock has mites, for the first time in 8 years of raising chickens, and I'm looking at how to treat them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You can try DE if you wish, but I use Sevin for mites.

 

[candyNflowers]

I use it but havent had much experience. my neighbors tried it in their yard to control flea problem with no success. doesnt hurt to try it. think it does sometimes help firm up the runny poo when you put it in the food as its got clay or something in it.

 

[aggiemae]

IMO except to kill roaches (or other LARGE insects) DE is a huge waste of money. I treat mites with Sevin dust and wood ash. You can spot treat them but it's easier to just add a heavy layer of either one or both to where the hens like to dust dust.

 

[Busybee1]

If u don't want to use sevin dust, you can use sulfer. Dust the powder or mix with water and spray the coop. Good luck!

 

[Fred's Hens]

You can also use Poultry Dust, sometimes marketed as Garden/Poultry Dust. It is often available with pyrethrin/permithrin instead of Sevin as the active ingredient.

 

[4 the Birds]

+1

I use a livestock dust (Python Dust) found at Tractor Supply for insect control. DE is wonderful to keep poop boards dry and also long term pest control in bedding material. Many people expect DE to kill pest upon contact and think that it is useless. It does not work that way.. It dries up (and kills) insects with an exoskeleton.

....and no you are not banned.

 

[Northie]

I bought this stuff a while back and dumped it all over the place... And to see if it actually worked I dumped some in a glass jar and tossed a beetle into the powder.... After a few days of watching it crawl around in the dust I gave up and flushed it down the toilet. I think it was more likely to starve to death or die of thirst than that DE powder. So I vote no... Not a miracle cure...

 

[aart]

It doesn't 'dry things up' per say, it pierces the exoskeleton of insects and then they dry up but, it is not absorbent in and of itself.
It can kill enough 'bugs' to decimate a deep litter system, it doesn't just kill target pests.....just like most other insecticides.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

DE or diatomaceous earth is touted as a miracle cure (similar to Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in "Men in Black") for fire ants as well as every other creepily crawly bug in the universe. Fire ants BTW live in the selfsame Earth from which DE is strip mined. Therefore I vote with aart because if DE regularly controlled fire ants or at least seriously wounded them then it would kill or cripple every fire ant that live in the very places from which DE is striped mined. I will not dispute whether DE kills insects or not, because scientifically this is an impossible task. If DE smothers just one insect, then legally it can be argued that DE is an insecticide, it's just not a very effective one as aart stated. But it is effective enough to keep the purveyors of diatomaceous earth out of the court room. In today's society this is all that matters.

If you want to use food grade DE or natural silica as a pesticide then by all means put your money down and take your chances. I say this because prolonged exposure to "Food Grade" (finely milled) or powered diatomaceous earth is also a human-icide as well as it is an insecticide.

http://oem.bmj.com/content/59/1/36.full.pdf

I just don't know if you are willing to run the above risks associated with diatomaceous earth use.