Natural Fly Control for the Chicken Coop

As much as I love my chickens, I do not love the flies that come with them!   Because we don’t have a fenced yard, and live in a suburban neighborhood, my girls are confined most of the day.  Add to that all the heat and humidity of south florida in the summer, and you can just imagine how the coop can smell, and the flies that it attracts.  I was visiting another blog today, and it seems I’m not the only one to have fly issues, so I thought I’d share a remedy that is working fabulously.

Everything was fine during the winter months, but when spring came, so did the pests.   After visiting a couple forums dedicated to backyard poultry, the Wolf Creek Ranch site was recommended for further reading.  The author recommends using food grade diatomaceous earth (DE) for fly control.  DE is actually tiny fossilized, hard-shelled algae.  The microsopic shells are rough and sharp.  From the Wolf Creek site: “When diatomaceous earth comes in contact with the insects, the sharp edges lacerate the bugs waxy exoskeleton and then the powdery diatomaceous earth absorbs the body fluids causing death from dehydration.”

My local feed store sells DE, and I also knew I needed some bedding to help with moisture during rainy season, so I chose pine shavings.  I put down a thick layer of pine shavings and mixed in the DE.  I also put it in their feed.   After about 2 weeks – no more flies!  Plus the DE helps with moisture and smell as well.

Since trying diatomaceous earth for the coop, I’ve learned that there are many health benefits for both humans and animals.  You do need to be careful not to inhale the fine dust when using it.  DE makes a natural pest control and kills all sorts of critters in feed and around the house.  Nutritionally, it is high in calcium and other minerals.  MoreThanAlive.com also has a lot of ideas for using diatomaceous earth for a variety of household and nutritional purposes.

I am so glad to have discovered diatomaceous earth!  I have used it for dusting garden plants (be careful though, you don’t want to kill the good bugs), and have found that it holds down algae growth in the chicken’s water container.  That one layering of pine shavings and DE in the coop has been all I’ve needed for several months, so it really is a low cost way of keeping pests and smells under control.