ashjc Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 Hi, I wanted some advice please. I am due to get my chickens in 2 weeks time (2 in my eglu classic) I am a complete novice and want to make sure I am doing the right preventative measures. I am confused regarding treating for lice and treating for redmite. Do you have to buy two seperate products to treat for both?.. do you have to do preventative treatments for both? Can I use the same product to prevent both or are each treated in a different way? I have my wormer all sorted, that was straight forward, but this is unclear to me. Any advice greatly appreciated, I dont want to buy lots of different products when I potentially only need one that does everything. Prevention is better than cure! thanks in advance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duncan08 Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 Hi There, I have a Go, I dont use anything to treat it for Red Mite, but give it a good clean out and disinfect it each weekend with the hose and just empty the poo tray and give it a quick squirt once during the week. For lice, we just got some lice powder from Pets at home, a quick shake under the wings and around their bum once a month is what we were advised to do and the girls seem fine with that. For the first weekend of the month we do the works, really good scrub of the eglu inside and out. Rake out the run. Worm, give them their lice powder, clean all their perches and logs, and give them a good look and feel over. It will be a little harder in the winter I am expecting, as the run will be much wetter, and we wont be able to dry out the eglu so well. Its going to mean getting inside with a teatowel I think Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henchanted Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 Hello ashjc I believe the simple answer is DE (diatomous earth) a natural substance in powder form that makes it an inhospitable environment for small things ie red/black mites, lice, other insects etc but is harmless to us/chickens/other animals (but avoid breathing it in) You need a puffer bottle so the one sold by Omlet ie DIATOM 450gms is a good starter, mine lasted for 2 months and I have bought more powder on-line in bulk (much cheaper) since and reused the bottle. You need to be fairly liberal inside the coop (mixed with nest box bedding) puffed into nooks and crannies. Can be puffed onto the hens although I initially over did it and too much caused eczema leading to bald patches in my hens. Its probably much more effective and less likely to be overdone in their dust bath. So I mix it in with the bedding mix, (aubiose/play-sand/bokashi-bran) which I use in my dry run and they dust bath freely - a joy to watch. Mine arrived riddled and I have not seen any nor have the hens showed any signs of being bothered by mites since I started the regular routine. Most commercial powders advertised as mite or louse specific are often more expensive and contain the same basic thing DE Hope that helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dogmother Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 If you use the search facility at the top of the page, there are loads of threads about just this subject Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashjc Posted June 2, 2011 Author Share Posted June 2, 2011 thanks for the advice everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
