The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[SallyinIndiana]

Quote:
turns out we don't have the ideal place for the flies. It has been reaching temps above 80F every other day or so and they don't like heat. We have moving water within 15 miles of us but not on our property. I read that the eggs like cool moving water but that the flies can travel up to 15 miles to find things to bite.

 

[aoxa]

turns out we don't have the ideal place for the flies. It has been reaching temps above 80F every other day or so and they don't like heat. We have moving water within 15 miles of us but not on our property. I read that the eggs like cool moving water but that the flies can travel up to 15 miles to find things to bite.

They are more thick around water for sure. Mosquitoes thrive this time of year especially around here because there are a lot of man made ponds, and our property is really wet. We don't have moving water, so moose sorry, I meant Horse flies aren't a huge issue at home yet, but they are terrible even around salt water. We live maybe 10 km from the beach.


Quote:

 

[SallyinIndiana]

Can you believe one site I read said to stay indoors to avoid their bite. I can't really see staying indoors for 1-2 months because of flies. Some thing else like your fly strips would be needed well before a week had passed.

 

[starlingdaly]

Mine can catch the mosquitoes but not the black flies. They are too fast. 

moose/buffalo flies can actually kill chickens during their breeding season. They can suffocate their airways or bleed them out. 

What about a bug zapper? 

So moose flies and horse flies are the same?
I remember when I was a kid swimming in pools, horseflies were a pretty big annoyance/fear. And we could take advantage if that and tell someone they had a horsefly on their head just to see them dunk under water.

 

[aoxa]

Can you believe one site I read said to stay indoors to avoid their bite. I can't really see staying indoors for 1-2 months because of flies. Some thing else like your fly strips would be needed well before a week had passed.

Supposedly banana boat sunscreen works really well against biting flies for humans.

 

[NanaLynn]

Supposedly banana boat sunscreen works really well against biting flies for humans.

I remember reading that on here. I looked for the sunscreen, but there are so many different kinds of the brand, is there one kind of banana boat better then others to use that works the best? Does anyone know?

 

[aoxa]

I remember reading that on here. I looked for the sunscreen, but there are so many different kinds of the brand, is there one kind of banana boat better then others to use that works the best? Does anyone know?

I believe it's the sport kind. Spray on.

Google search came up with: Coppertone works well too. SPF 50.

I have coppertone at home. I always buy the kids kind because it smells so nice.. Might be worth a try..

 

[NanaLynn]

Somebody was mentioning about not using the ACV with the Mother in the chickens water in the summer. I noticed lately that the water has been getting really nasty since the hot weather came. It used to stay pretty clean. I moved the bucket water container into the shade to help with mold build up and scrubbed the water cups and the bucket clean and just added fresh water back with no ACV this time.

Could the addition of ACV plus the high temperatures have made the water get extra moldy and nasty in just a few days? Here is a picture of how it looked before I cleaned it. It looked worse in person, these pictures were from my phone camera, so it did not capture what it looked like too well.

Any ideas? Hopefully the cleaning, putting it in the shade and taking out the ACV will do the trick. That water was gross with all that mold floating in it. It was weird too that the mold was only in the water and the bucket itself was not moldy.

 

[NanaLynn]

I believe it's the sport kind. Spray on.

Google search came up with: Coppertone works well too. SPF 50.

I have coppertone at home. I always buy the kids kind because it smells so nice.. Might be worth a try..

Anything to keep the mosquitoes off of me is worth the try. They are so bad here. Thanks!

 

[brandislee]

Crooks- very informative post. I as a small backyard chicken raiser have/do feed layer pellets. But my plan when it is gone is to switch to grains and supplements for their better health. I do know that between last fall and this spring my 4 older hens (1yr old in May) look much healthier since I ferment their feed & routinely add herbs to it. I've also added. Oats, wheat, flax seed as well. This means they get less layer pellets with the addition of grains and hence why a 50# bag I purchased in September will probably last thru fall. They also forage daily for their food which also has cut back on their layer pellets intake. My tots are on grower crumbles because they don't forage yet but my hope/plan is to have them all on grains only with supplements and herbs by fall.

I also feed commercial feed... but I wouldn't call it pellets. I figure it's pretty close to what I would mix if I could do it myself (GMO free cracked and whole grains mixed with protein and nutri-balancer... they also mix in grit, which I HATE that I have to pay for in each bag). I ferment that with added herbs and garlic, and pretty much everyone free ranges all day... except today and probably most of this weekend. I moved a bunch of chickens to the summer pen so the broodies and chicks could have the more secure main coop, and I have to keep them there for a few days until they accept it as "home."

I also use a lot of vinegar for cleaning too - I do keep bleach around for certain things, to use rarely, sometime just to sit in the toilet bowl.

My disinfectant of choice is a bottle of Everclear - LOL. I dilute it into a spray bottle and use it on EVERYTHING from bathrooms to kitchen. I even used it to disinfect my kids toys when they were little. I couldn't stand to see people spray their babies' and toddlers' toys with Lysol - yuck! You can soak stuff in a solution of it or just spray on and let dry. Kills pretty much everything without any toxic smells, etc. Around here, ranchers even buy it from the liquor store to clean their tractors. It might seem pricey to buy the initial bottle of it, but it really does last a long time as you can dilute it quite a bit and it's still very effective.

I keep a bottle of bleach, but only rarely use it for like a load of dish cloths that got rank... or my husband's socks

I used to use a few T when I washed diapers as well. And I figure it's a good emergency supply to keep around if I for whatever reason needed to sanitize water and had no other means to do so.

I usually use vinegar, hydrogen peroxide (less so these days, though, that was more like when the kids were potty training if YKWIM), or Vodka. But the vodka gets used more for deodorizing things- like a febreeze replacement. I mix EO's with it and put it in a squirt bottle. The alcohol evaporates a lot faster (and has a lot less smell itself) than vinegar, so it works well for deodorizing like the rug or the couch.

What's everyone's "natural" approach to reducing flies?? They're not so bad in my chicken coop - just my ducks' area... they just recently started showing up but there's a lot of them!

I like fly tape, it seems to be the only thing that consistantly works. And why the heck would anyone want to make fly tape, unless you live like 50 miles from a store? Fly tape is like $2 for a dozen rolls. I bought two boxes last year and still have a ton left (speaking of which, I need to put one in the coop and one in the shed by the kitties...).

Why don't my chickens eat flies? They were THICK before I cleaned out the run (now they've migrated with the crap to the compost pile, which I occasionally spray with this EO based fly killer). But I've never seen one of my chickens go after a fly. I think they're too fast. I'll bet they put a dent in the number of larvae, though.