Sand with Cinnamon

[MawerFamily]

I just read one of those silly lifehacks and learned that if you mix a cup of cinnamon in with your sand, it will prevent bugs and ants from getting in it. Would it be safe for the chickens? We were putting a sand box in their covered run for dust baths and i'd like to keep it bug free if possible.

Thanks for any insight,

MawerFamily

 

[Blooie]

I guess I don't understand the need to keep the dust bath bug free, if you are worried about ants and such. They'll pick off every one that shows his pointy little antennae. As for the cinnamon, have you ever had cinnamon "puff" and gotten it in your nose? It burns mucus membranes like crazy. There was a recent social media challenge going around where kids took a mouthful of cinnamon. The resulting choking as it hit those mucus membranes was not a pretty thing to see. Some kids suffered serious complications from it.

You'd have to put quite a bit of cinnamon in the dust bath to make much of an impact on crawlys. And there's a reason it's called a "dust bath" - the chickens kick up quite a bit dust in their fluffing and and scratching. They would be right at "nostril" level. Probably not a good thing if you want to avoid respiratory illness in your flock. That stuff is really irritating.

If you really feel the need to put something in their dust bath, you might look into food grade DE. Make sure it's food grade, not for pools and such. Supposedly it kills bugs. But here's the caveat - it's a fine dust that should not be inhaled by man nor beast. Lots of folks here on BYC swear by it. I tried it. I swore at it. Besides, using Deep Litter like I do, I want all those bugs and such to help break down the litter, so it doesn't make sense to put in something that has the opposite effect. Any larger bugs the chickens will eat, or at least have a great time scratching for.

 

[MawerFamily]

Thanks for the reply... I never used any cinnamon, I just thought it was an interesting concept i'd seen fly around facebook. There aren't really many bugs in their run anyway, in fact, we wish there were more... Thanks

 

[sherdon2]

How do you control the flies?

 

[MawerFamily]

we don't seem to have many, but, our chicks just moved to their coop and extra large run so, they haven't had much time to dirty it up.

 

[ChickenMammX4]

How do you control the flies?

I read that vanilla keeps flies away. I hung a vanilla scented air freshners (those little trees from the dollar store to hang in the car) in the coop. Not sure if that's the reason but I don;t have flies. No problem in the run either. We've had a wet spring so I'm surprised.

 

[Dooney]

I have been using a reusable fly trap with stinky bait. I was amazed how many were in it but now what do I do with the flies? That stuff is STINKY!