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Bringing food production home

We have had stick fast fleas getting on our chooks over the warmer months for the last two years, and have been treating them with oil, vaseline, you name it, and they come back in a week or two. The fleas suck on around the chook's eye and sometimes on their wattles.

My wife read an article that advocates concreting the shed floor in the chook pen as the flea's bread in the dirt. My answer was "what about the rest of the dirt in the cook yard that the scratch in and dirt bath in."

Well it works. CONCRETE the chook shed floor and you will have no more problems with the stick fast fleas. We have been free of them for 2 months now, and they are still around 'cause the flammin' dog is now getting them between her toes!!

Rick and old trick is go in the chook pen with a bag of builders line [the white stuff ] and chuck it every where floor walls roof nests that will keep most chook bugs at bay

The idea of the concrete floor is that the fleas drop from the birds at night time (when they are roosting/ perching whatever) into the sand below to breed.
Vaseline smeared on the birds does the trick as well, a bit labour intensive though.
The other trick is drop to pieces of wormwood over the floor of the chicken pen, the birds walk through it and it helps repel the fleas, we have never had any trouble with them, we have lots of wormwood and a concrete floor which I scratched my name and date into when screeding the concreting.

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Lime on the dirt works for me. they dig and cover themselves in it.

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To think before you act is a wise option. But not as funny.

Main reason I don't have chooks is it will attract every snake in Qld to my back yard.
Friend woke up to a giant olive python with a lump in its belly in her hen house just last week.
Just forced its way through the wire.
My wife would have kittens and I would have to start piggy backing her around the back yard.

Concrete the dog
We don't have any drama's with fleas, guy that sells the chooks from MT Barker said to put this parasite stuff that you get from Landmark in the pen, we have only done it once and all seems fine,
How do you stop chooks laying eggs all around the yard, have even kept the locked up for most of the day, they seem to hold eggs in until they get out, we find the eggs but it's just not cricket

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Cheers
Nocky
Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. Doug Larson
My Weather Site, going 12 years +
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I have never seen Stickfasts on our poultry, mainly good luck, partly good quarantine procedures, partly being fussy where we buy. I have stopped buying at Mundijong auction and markets because of the number of birds that are sick and infested there. People tend to bring their culls there and anything half decent is sold at ridiculous prices. Smaller sales are usually better, the organisers are more vigilant and will remove birds before they are penned.

You could try a couple of drops of Frontline on the birds. Some people use Cydectin. A follow up treatment is also necessary. Now is the time to start when they aren't laying heaps. I would chuck eggs away for a couple of weeks just as a precaution. The life cycle of the flea is 3-4 weeks so if you can remove the birds, treat them and the coop and return them 4 weeks later after a second treatment that should fix them too. Flea bombs can be effective too if the coop is enclosed and the birds are removed.

PK

Try locking them in the pen for 2 or 3 weeks until they get used to laying in there, if they aren't laying much at the moment wait until they start again (if yours have that much life left in them!). You may have to do this a couple of times if they are a bit slow!

They get really pee'd off about being locked in, they seem to be laying irregular atm, but eggs are back in the pen, I think if she forgets to clean out the pen they go elsewhere, guy we bought them from said they had 3years at least left, one from Ag College is probably almost past it, they seem pretty tired when you get them

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Cheers
Nocky
Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. Doug Larson
My Weather Site, going 12 years +
Nocky's Backyard
My Aquaponics System