Chicken bald back

[Rosalie]

Have just got my 4 bantams between 6 and 8 weeks old. What sort of things should I use in the coop for cleaning etc - how often - preventatives etc bearing in mind their age, Thankyou. It's a wooden coop.

[jackian]

Welcome to you and your. Girls

I have a recycled plastic coup now as I had with red mite with a wooden coup.

The cleaning is similar of course.

I use easi bed for the floor and the nest boxes and change that every couple of weeks.

I poo pick in the coup every morning . Takes a minute or so less in the summer as they are not in it for long .

All my girls sleep on the coup floor and do not sleep on the rungs provided.

I wash it all out every weekend especcially in the summer with pet friendly disinfectant and spray with anti red mite spray.

I dust it all with anti mite powder.

Bonny one of my old girls is always there telling me I have missed a bit . I keep telling her if she does not like it do it herself .

The run is covered in wood chipping sand I rake that over each morning and poo pick that . They FR a lot so not in there much .i then scatter and rake in anti mite powder so when they dust bath they cover them selves in powder.

I hope that helps

 

Jackie x

[Luvachicken]

Hi Rosalie, I have bantams too and although they are just over 2 now I got them at a similar age to yours.

They are so sweet at that age. I'm sure you will really enjoy having them.

 

I don't know what you use to clean a wooden coop with though, sorry, as I have a cube, but I do sprinkle red mite powder all inside after I have cleaned everything.

I also use the pink Total Mite Kill spray and leave that all to dry. I'm pretty certain you can use both products in a wooden house.

I usually clean mine out every week, they only have little poops most of the time, so it is not a messy job.

 

If I'm right you can put pictures on after 5 posts, and we all love seeing new pictures especially chickies and grass

[Rosalie]

Thank you both very much for your help I will try and get a picture of them

[Beantree]

All our coops are wooden Rosalie. They are treated outside with Cuprinol Shades to reduce water absorption and they are treated inside with creosote. That's the original stuff that can only be bought 'trade' now. We dilute it 50:50 with paraffin so it soaks in better and dries faster. That is done every year and we have a spare coop to put the chickens for a few weeks while the stuff dries.

 

The problem is once you have red mite they are very difficult to eradicate, certainly in the warmer months. Where we went wrong was not spotting them early enough. So now we check the perches every day, because they arrive in the coop on the hens. Red mite literally fall from the sky off wild birds, land on the chickens and go into the coop. There they can breed. But the first stage is they get off the hen in the morning and hide under the perch. That's when you can spot them.

 

Regular cleaning out, wiping the corners with a tissue, will tell you if they are there because you get red streaks on the tissue when you squash mite. We are experimenting with a light dusting of 'ant and crawling insect powder'. We are only applying it around the floor edges and then covering it with bedding. This is to stop the wing flapping of the chickens raising the powder as they must not breath it or contact it. We tried potash (wood fire ash) but the mite nested in it, although it seemed to kill the very young ones. We haven't tried Diatom.

[Egluntyne]

I use Smite and follow it with diatom in all the nooks and crannies.

[taz2010]

I use Smite and follow it with diatom in all the nooks and crannies.

I use duramitex the old stuff that harkers made we found it whilst on holiday and now supplied by a man on another site and is absolutely the best on the market for getting rid of red mite also cleaning coups never had it now for 2 years and hopefully never again as this is a horrible thing to have