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Hobby Farming

Permaculture – treating mite infestations in chickens

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Some of you may have read in the ‘Ask Trev’ section some tips I gave long-time reader Maddy in regards to caring for her new chickens.  Some of these tips revolved around stopping her chickens getting mites.

Well it shows that one must have constant vigilance as I had not recently enacted some of my own advice and two of my chickens got infested with mites.  This combined with a 45+ degree day lead to the demise of one of our dear chookies.

Since then I have been on the mite-attack!  Getting rid of them and making sure they do not return.  So today’s advice is on how to get rid of mites once you have them and how to do it without resorting to harmful chemicals.  Everything you need you can make at home the permaculture way!

Signs of mites

 

Getting rid of the mites

Step 1: Cleaning the coops

Get rid of all straw and bedding.  Then spray the coops out with White Oil thereby suffocating the mites.  I make this in the following way:

  • 2 cups of vegetable oil
  • Half a cup of dishwashing liquid
Homemade white oil – do NOT mix up with the coconut milk when making a curry

Simply pour these into a sealable jar and give them a good shake!  The resulting liquid should indeed be white.  Now add 10ml of your elixir to one liter of water in a spray bottle, shake again and spray out your coops, killing the mites.  Note, I also use method to get rids of the aphids that occasionally infest my curry tree.  Now replace their bedding with fresh straw and you are set to go!

 

Step 2: Cleaning your chickens

Mites can show up in different ways on your chooks.  On my Frizzles they turn up on their bellies and the backs of their heads.  Only about half my chickens developed these symptoms but after losing a chook I decided to treat my entire flock.   I do this making up some Garlic Juice Spray.  For this you need:

  • 30ml of garlic juice
  • 300ml of water
  • 1 teaspoon of lavender oil

Now garlic juice can be hard to come by and what I found works just as well is to dump a bunch of juicy crushed garlic into your mixture then put it through a strainer before you pour it into your spray bottle.  Mix up the above ingredients, give it a good shake and then spray directly onto your chickens, avoiding their faces as best you can.  Spray your chickens all over, paying special attention to the backs of their head, their bellies and under their wings.  For chickens with no symptoms just a light spray should suffice. For my chook who did survive the hot day but was showing mite symptoms, we sprayed her until she dripped and smelled like an Italian restaurant!

What you can also do is provide an Ash Bath.

A bath where your chooks come out filthier yet healthier

Some people actually recommend rubbing your chickens down with ash but I find this works just as well.  Make a little hollow in the dirt somewhere in your chook yard and fill it with ash from  your fire (if you don’t have a fire, just watch the news for arson reports then do a quick drive by with a bucket and spade).  The chickens will pop themselves in of their own accord and ruffle their feathers, giving themselves a little coating of ash which drives away mites.  Note your chooks probably do this anyway in the dirt and dust, but ash is much more effective at getting rid of the creepy crawlies.  If you keep your ash bath topped up the chooks will use it as needed.

 

Keeping the mites away

Now that you’ve treated your coop and your chickens you want to stop the mites coming back and here is how:

Step One: Your coops

  • Gather up a few fistfuls of fresh wormwood plant and throw them into your coops amongst their bedding and laying boxes. This should drive away any mites that may have survived your white oil purge. If you suspect they may be returning, change their straw and give a white oil spray to the coops.
Wormwood – not just for magic spells anymore

 

Step Two: Your chickens

  • Drop a couple of cloves of garlic into their water and replace when necessary. Live by this saying: A bit of garlic a day keeps the mites away.
Not as refreshing as a twist of lemon but more effective

 

And that’s pretty much it.  But I must stress vigilance.  I had been doing the ‘garlic in the water’ and ‘wormwood in their nests’ thing for the past year and had nary a problem.  Due to being so busy around the farm keeping everything alive in summer I had become lax and as a result I learned my lesson the hard way by losing one of our dear chookies; it’s a lesson I don’t wish to learn a second time.

 

Got any permaculture tips for treating mites in chickens you would like to add?  Would love to read them in the comments section below!

Ask Trev!, Hobby Farming

Ask Trev – Chicken care questions

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One of the first questions I got for ‘Ask Trev’ was from Maddy who was asking if she should get chickens.  Well, happily she took my advice and now has a little brood of her own.  So now we have some follow up questions about their care which I will address today.

 

Dear Farmer Trev,

Ok, so I got chooks.
19 week old pullets. They are all New Hampshire cross breeds. One Australorp cross (proving to be the noisiest), a white leggorn X and a Rhode Island Red X. The tiniest (white leghorn cross) has already come on the lay but one of the others (or potentially her) is smashing up her eggs before I get to them. How do I stop this behaviour?

Small egg: From our Frizzle Chickens. Large egg: From our Muscovy Ducks.
Small egg: From our Frizzle Chickens.
Large egg: From our Muscovy Ducks.

Though it may not be, chances are she is smashing her own eggs.  The chooks are not after the egg within, but rather the shell itself as their system breaks down egg shells in order to make more egg shells and if their system is not getting enough of what will make the shells of their eggs strong enough, they will destroy their own.

I’d recommend getting a big bag of shell grit.  It’s this grey granules stuff that looks like coarse sand.  Contained within is everything that a chicken needs to make the shells of its eggs stronger (and as a result harder for them or their coop-mates to break) and should stop them feeling they have to break existing eggs to get those nutrients.  If your chooks were bigger or older I’d suggest laying pellets but shell grit for their current state will work best.  You can also throw old egg shells back into the chicken coop for them to peck at and break.

 

Also – hen pecking – tiny has already started hen pecking the red. How do I address hen pecking if it gets really bad? Or is this the natural order of hens and there’s nothing I can do?

It’s the natural order babe – it’s where the term ‘Pecking Order’ comes from.  There is nothing short of having them in completely separate coops that you can do.  Just let them figure it out for themselves and hopefully it should die down.  My chooks have stopped it now they have figured out their hierarchy, though my ducks still engage in it after being together for a year.

 

Finally – Is there anything they really, really should not be fed or any tips for super happy hens?
Thanks Big Farmer T.
-Mads.

Kitchen scraps, wheat and either shell grit or laying pellets should give them all the sustenance they need.  There is not much that can harm a chook as if it’s a food that’s not good for them they won’t eat it (case in point with potato peelings).  And of course don’t feed them any kind of bird meat, though once again they probably wouldn’t touch it anyway.  A small garlic clove dropped into their water once in a blue moon is good for keeping away mites.  Also get yourself a wormwood plant, grow it to a nice size in a pot and stick it in their coop.  They will peck at it now and then and it’s great for keeping away fleas and other insects that will bother your chickens without driving away the bugs they like to eat.

As for super happy hens, just plenty of food, water, shelter, protection from predators and as much space to scratch around as you can manage and they should be happy little hens indeed!