Keeping hens and ducks chat.

ali-t · 21 July 2017 at 11:17AM

Hey fellow chicken keepers, have any of you used dergall for controlling red mites? I'm still trying to find the holy grail of pest control and my partner found this stuff but I can only find press releases and organisation published material rather than independent reviews. Any experiences of it on me http://dergall.pl/en-index.html

fuddle · 21 July 2017 at 6:09PM

Fantastic advise edwink. I really appreciate it, thank you.

I was thinking of a mixture of breeds but atop a North East English hill I have to make sure they're acclimated to our weathers. I'll be back when the time comes.

I'm really worried about fox proofing the coop. Our run is going to be specially made for the size we have 3.5m square. It will be welded to the highest standard with DH overseeing.its going below ground and then extra along the bottom and then coming out. With earth ontop. I hadn't thought of big rocks so will definately do that with heavy planters around it too.

Do foxes not like certain plants? Worth an ask lol

The roof is going to be made to size and too welded, wrapped and fixed with a secondary hardware get metal mesh. Any idea of what metalised stuff stands up to predators? I know chicken wire is a no no. Then around the plot were just having chicken wire. This is just to try to stop any escaping chickens getting into other people's plot.

And that leads me to clipping the chickens wings. What's your feeling on this in terms of how the chicken might feel about it?

Still nothing practical on terms of the end goal but there's one heck of an overgrown space ready for scratching. My Pinterest feed in full of chicken hacks and I'm watching how to carry the feathered things. Excited. Much!

edwink · 21 July 2017 at 6:29PM

ali-t wrote: »

Hey fellow chicken keepers, have any of you used dergall for controlling red mites? I'm still trying to find the holy grail of pest control and my partner found this stuff but I can only find press releases and organisation published material rather than independent reviews. Any experiences of it on me http://dergall.pl/en-index.html

Hi Ali-t

I have never actually heard of it before. I have done a bit of Google-ing as you have done and like you can not find any reviews on it what so ever. In the only published material I could find so far it appears to me that it is an industrial type of pesticide and states that it is toxic and not to be inhaled etc. etc. From what I can see on their selling page it is designed to be diluted for use and says that spraying at night is best. My slight concern would be spraying at night whist the hens are in could harm them as they would definitely be inhaling it, in its diluted form of course.

In the literature I read that it suffocates the mites as they breath it in but what about the poor hens? I am really not sure about this product to be honest Ali-t but I will carry on looking tonight to see if I can find anything further on it for you.

HTH

Edwink x

edwink · 21 July 2017 at 7:21PM

Hi Fuddle the answers to each of your questions are as follows:~

*I personally am not aware of any plants that put off foxes to be honest.

*Not sure why chicken wire is a no no tbh. Are you talking about the coop roof? How tall is it going to be? There is a type of galvanised half inch mesh that can be purchased in sheets from builders merchants or maybe from a fencing company perhaps.

*If you are concerned that one of your hens could escape you obviously need to make sure 100% that they can not. Because if one could get out a predator could get in. This is often a worry for hen keepers so every precaution needs to be taken that is possible to take.

*With regards to clipping it is their feathers that can be clipped not their wings. I have had to clip a couple of mine over the years because even though we have high fences on both sides a few were more than happy to perch right on top of the fences. And with our next door neighbours dog eyeing them up it would have been pretty dangerous for them to land in next doors garden. If you were to clip the feathers on one of your hens and she escaped she would find it much harder to get away from a predator. Remember my post the other day about us rehoming a single hen? because her feathered friends got killed by a fox? She survived because she flew up to the top of a high fence and that saved her life.

Try not to worry too much fuddle you will get the hang of it all honest. It will all become second nature to you after a while. Just always remember one thing which is HENS LOVE TREATS:rotfl: In our house that's sweetcorn, grapes, lettuce, scrabbled egg, peaches, pears, plums, raspberries, blackberries, cabbage, kale, potato peelings and cucumber. For the winter treats cooked pasta, potatoes and porridge oats cooked or uncooked. Just a tip fuddle never give your girls porridge in the summer/warmer months as it will make them overheat. And definitely NO salt whatsoever. They can have onion but only a small amount from time to time.

HTH

Edwink

Dizzy_Ditzy · 21 July 2017 at 9:16PM

For red mite I highly recommend Indorex spray - it's not cheap but it's brilliant!

It's not marketed as a red mite treatment but it's worked wonders for us. Not perfect but nothing is!

ali-t · 22 July 2017 at 9:21AM

We currently use a powder like diacetamous earth and use poultry shield when we wash it down but it's not perfect.

StarShapedPeg · 22 July 2017 at 10:06AM

Another vote for diacetamous earth, I got some really cheap diatom off eBay last year and it's still going great guns, I had to decant it into a shaker bottle as it came in a poly bag which was hopeless. I also use poultry shield and then biolink biodri which is worth its weight in gold. When they bring mud and water and god knows what else in from the garden and make puddles in the coop, the stuff just soaks it up like a sponge.xxx

suki1964 · 28 July 2017 at 2:32PM

Dizzy_Ditzy wrote: »

For red mite I highly recommend Indorex spray - it's not cheap but it's brilliant!

It's not marketed as a red mite treatment but it's worked wonders for us. Not perfect but nothing is!

What a useful tip. I'd never have thought about that and I've half a tin in the garage.

I did find red mite a month ago and treated both the girls and the coop. However since then I've had a broody sitting so can't re treat ATM

Yes I expect not the patter of tiny feet this weekend, but the patter off webbed ones

. She's sitting on duck eggs as that's all I could get hold off. There's five under her and last we candled all were viable, 3 stronger then the others

edwink · 2 August 2017 at 7:30PM

Hi everyone

How is everyone getting on especially in this wet and windy weather? My poor little girlies and my beautiful boy too of course are all getting a regular soaking, bless them. I think we have had rain here for the past 2/3 weeks and have more forecast over this next week. Our water butts are full to bursting and all the veg especially the potatoes have had a good old soaking so no need for anymore rain for a while thank you. I wish eh?

Not getting many eggs from my old girlies but am happy if they are happy in their retirement because that's all that matters to me. Getting quite a few freckled (age spots) eggs now because of their age and a few wrinkled ones that are a little watery but still nice and orange like the sun.

Ducks are laying less this year too. I just wish they would be as tidy as the hens and lay them in their hotel because it is like an Easter egg hunt here every day;). They lay them under the bushes/trees, in the pond or just anywhere on one of the paths and those roll down the garden as we are on a slope. When they get to the bottom of the garden they smash in to the gate then the hens gobble them up. Our ducks always spend time under a huge Acer tree we have and when they lay an egg there they go off for a waddle and leave it and then the blooming Magpies get hold of it.:mad: Just can't win here at the moment! Hubby says he will win in the end as he now keeps going out every hour or so to check to see if any have been laid.

Hope everyone and their girls and boys are all well.

Take care all.

Edwink

ali-t · 3 August 2017 at 1:27PM

We have restocked and bought another 13 hens at a poultry sale last week. I finally got silkies - well silky crosses but I'm happy with that. We got more red hens and some black Rock hybrids too which takes our total to 17 but none of them are laying yet. As they were all from different places we decided to put them all in together and thankfully there hasn't been much fighting which is great.

Keeping hens and ducks chat.

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free