July 31st, 2009 . Posted in Mealworms | Comments Off
Tags: Mealworms
Yesterday, I had a look at my mealworm beetles and they seemed perfectly happy, running around and trying to hide under a piece of wood in their container. When I looked more closely, I realised I could only see 3 of them. I checked through all of the bedding, but there were no dead bodies.
I think 1 of them has either escaped, or been thrown away when I changed their paper towel (I put a damp paper towel in with them for moisture).
Also, I still haven’t found any babies in there, which is odd because I have seen them mating a few times. I think I will have to give in a buy a starter mealworm colony.
July 28th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, cleaning, coop, free range, mites, parasites
Today my new cleaning products arrived – I ordered Diatom, Poultry Shield, and a spray bottle from Flyte So Fancy. This is a store that I have used a lot of times – they have a great range of poultry related products and delivery is always lightning fast!
Hopefully this will kill them!
Poultry shield is a liquid that I used to spray the inside of the coop and should hopefully get rid of red mite. Apparently it helps to destroy the mites and the eggs, and it was significantly cheaper than the spray I bought (probably cost me less than £1 to spray the whole coop compared to £15), and was also easier to apply.
The other product that I bought is diatom, which is diatomaceous earth and will hopefully prevent the mites from coming back. It works by dehydrating them, and although it won’t kill them instantly, it should help to control their numbers in the future. After I finished spraying the coop I spread a load of diatom all over the inside.
Both of these products were recommended to me on Down the Lane and those guys always seem to know what they are talking about!
Whilst I was cleaning out the coop again, I let the girls out in the garden. I must admit, whilst it has been stressful sorting all of this out, I have enjoyed letting them out in the garden again. They had great fun scratching around under my rose bush, and spreading a heap of grass clipping around the garden!
Chickens love piles of stuff, but they won't be piles once the chickens have finished with them!
July 26th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | Comments Off
Tags: Chickens, cleaning, coop, mites, nest box, parasites
When I went to clean out the coop this morning I found more mites. These ones were all smaller and bright red (I think that means they are younger than the larger black ones). I took all of the bedding out of the nest box, sprayed the mite spray that I have been using and put down some more newspaper. When I cam back about an hour later there were quite a few dead mites on the newspaper.
I think this is going to be a problem for a long time…
July 25th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | 2 Comments »
Tags: Chickens, cleaning, coop, mites, nest box, netting, parasites
As I said in my last post, I am intending to move the coop to the back of the garden and swap the netting and run for an electric fence. Although I haven’t got the new fence yet, I have decided to take down the netting, and move the coop and run to a new location ready for the fence. This has allowed me to give the run a good clean and I have applied some mite spray.
The first thing that I did was to move the run away from the coop and to another part of the garden. I pushed the open side of the run up against the fence and put the chickens in there so that they couldn’t escape whilst I removed the net.
When I removed the run this is what was left behind...
I think the chickens enjoyed the grass when I moved the run
The next step was to remove the netting – I have to admit it was a lot easier to take down than it was to put up!
Here you can see what the chickens did to the ground behind the net
With the netting gone, we had access to all sides of the coop so we gave it a big clean out. First we removed all of the bedding, and then scrubbed everything down with hot soapy water. I let the coop dry and then sprayed everything with some mite spray (we used 2 cans of the stuff). I even removed the perches as they were not being used and provided more hiding places for the mites. I have included some pictures to show you the extent of the infestation.
This is the bit of wood I put in for the new nest area
Here is a (nice?) close up of the creatures...
This is the slot that the floor slides into. There were mites all along the back edge.
When I removed the percehes, this is what was lurking behind them.
As you can see the mites were everywhere! Once I had finished cleaning out the run I moved it to a new position – ready for the electric fence. I have replaced the wooden nest area with a plastic box. Hopefully this is the last of the mites…
This is the cleanest the coop has ever been!
The run in its new position
July 25th, 2009 . Posted in Chickens | 1 Comment »
Tags: Chickens, cleaning, coop, feed, mud, netting, poo
When I got up this morning, Meg was fine and was scratching around as much as the other girls which was a relief.
I have recently realised that my setup is not working very well for me. One reason that I think I have got so heavily infested with mites is that the coop is virtually impossible to clean out in it’s current location – in order to get to the nest box I need to squeeze into a small gap between the coop and the fence, and I only have access to the rest of the coop from one side because of the netting at the back of it and the run at the front. Also, because of the nest area that I screwed into the floor of the coop, I can’t slide the floor out to clean it.
The run itself is also causing me problems: Due to the fact that it is so long and only about a meter high, it is virtually impossible for me to clean it. This means that over the past few months, the land underneath the run has turned into a bit of a swamp. As well as the vast quantities of chicken poop that have built up, I have had a problem with one of my feeders. When I moved the feeder into the middle of the run the weather was dry and it caused no problems. The girls like to empty the feeder onto the floor, but then over then following days will eat the pellets up so nothing is wasted. Since the weather has been so wet, all of the pellets on the floor have been turning to mush and being scratched into the floor and creating a disgusting smell. This means that the floor of the run has turned into a mixture of chicken poo and fermenting layers pellets and the smell is awful! They were also getting through twice as much food as usual so I have had to move the feeder back under the coop.
The final thing that I hadn’t really considered in my setup was convenience. Due to the fact that I have to move a load of flower pots, and squeeze under the netting to get to the back of the coop, changing the girls’ food has been a nightmare.
To fix all of these problems I have decided to have a bit of a move around in the garden. I am going to move the coop to the area behind the netting, remove the netting and the run and put up an electric fence. This will allow me to enter the chickens’ area and keep it clean, and will allow access to all sides of the coop for cleaning. This should hopefully solve most of my problems…