Chicken Mites

[waretrop]

I have a hard plastic kiddie swimming pool that I keep sand and lime in. The chickens take dust baths in it and that keeps the lice away. I also use lime in the outside grazing area, in the chicken coop floor and in all the next boxes. I toss it in all the nooks and crannies around the coop. You can make a lime wash by adding water and paint the coop. I use it every week in all these areas, year round. I never have a problem with buggers...Spring and Fall I use diatom powder in the sandbox and next boxes, for just one week. So all that I do also keeps the smells down.

 

[tortoise]

Oh thank you! I love the kiddie pool idea. I have lime. Can I use it with deep litter method?

 

[Beekissed]

Oh thank you! I love the kiddie pool idea. I have lime. Can I use it with deep litter method?

You can but it will slow down your composting.

 

[waretrop]

OK...Too much of anything is no good, IN MOST CASES. Not to start a new thingie but......things stop digesting at about a pH of 4, I think. So then they start smelling. So if you have an acid stomach you add "Alka Seltzar" and you start feeling better pretty quick. The key word is "Alka". If your fish take gets smelly and the pH is acid you can through a little baking soda in it to raise the pH and the bacteria will become active and digest again. Fish tanks should smell "earthy". Same with a pile of chicken doolies, if it gets too acid it will smell and not digest. Through a little lime on it and the smell goes away almost immediately and will begin to digest. I use my nose to make those decisions...

Also, lime does not bother chickens feet or skin or anything. Maybe if they lived as long as we do it may do something but that is not the case. I have 200 chickens in a large confined area, chain linked fence and large coop with 3 sets of 15 nest boxes in each, made of metal, and even linoleum floor. The lime doesn't bother anything. I use about 50 pounds every week. Now I have allot of chickens but when I first learned all about this doolie stuff I was told to use it sparingly until things smelled sweet...

So remember too much of anything is not good....except when it comes to chocolate....

BTW....the sandbox is one of those with lids...a plastic stone looking thing or a turtle. I have used both. They come with a plastic cover. I use the cover when it rains or when I don't want the chickens to use it. I also might add to the mix that my chickens are covered with a tarp during the migration season to wort off avian influenza...

I don't use the sandbox lid in the summer as the grazing area is covered and doesn't get rain.

 

[Beekissed]

Yep....small amounts only, which kind of defeats the purpose of even using lime, as if someone is doing it to combat smells or mites in deep litter, it pretty much has to be a good amount to do that and on an ongoing basis.

If one is just using deep bedding, lime comes in handy, as deep bedding is sort of like a diaper...once it's saturated with feces and moisture from those, one either cleans it out, adds more, or adds lime to try and combat the smell/the high nitrogen of the bedding load/or to dry up the mix. No efforts to compost that in the coop at all, so adding lime doesn't really matter then.

In composting deep litter, however, the idea is to keep the nitrogen, carbon, and moisture balanced so that it composts well together, there are no bad smells and the pH of the composted litter is more or less neutral in the end and in no need of lime or any pH adjustments. For true composting deep litter, the use of lime in anything but scant amounts can slow down the composting action a bit, and if you are doing it right, lime isn't really needed.

http://www.gardenguides.com/119989-compost-lime.html

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/add-lime-compost-piles-78531.html
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/add-lime-compost-piles-78531.html
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1663504/adding-lime-to-compost

https://www.planetnatural.com/composting-101/making/starters/

Lime
Some people include lime in their compost to raise pH. Immature compost can indeed be quite acidic — the process produces many acids — but by the time it is fully mature, its pH is about 6.5, which is ideal for most plants. Adding agricultural lime can harm some of the micro-organisms that create compost, and unbalance the complicated chemistry. The early, acidic phase, for instance, plays an important role in killing dangerous pathogens. It’s best to adjust compost pH after the composting process is finished, but if your starting mix has a pH of 5 or below, you can add lime.

 

[Hinotori]

First, I have a sort of dirt floor in the big coop. The previous property owner had put down a holey carpet upside down and built an awning over it. We said screw it since we couldnt get it up easy and walled it and put large fowl birds there anyway.

I've got the perfect balance going on in that coop's deep litter. It may dry out a bit too much in summer, but 10 months of the year is (amazingly) perfect even with the amount of rain we get. Worms and other things live in the lower levels as I come across them if I'm scooping some out for the garden. Top few inches are dry and fluffy and it becomes crumbly soil under. Poop is broken down within a few days and it never smells in there. The first year was kind of bad, even with me putting down a lot of pine pellets then shavings. Stalldry was my friend that year. Then spring and summer got so busy and I really meant to clean it all out but never got to it. I felt like a bad chicken mom that winter until I realized it was working properly finally and stayed dry and smell free. I toss about a bag of pine shavings on the floor every year now after I scoop out enough garden litter. It stays at about a foot deep altogether.

I took Mom 2 feed sacks of litter last fall for her pots with the warning that it is almost pure poop. When she went to use it she kept asking why doesn't this smell like poop. It smells like dirt. Then she complained about all the feathers since the girls were molting when I scooped. "I can't have feathers in the pots. Your little nieces will try and pick them out." So Mom sorted out the worst of the feathers. The two bags I took her last month she was fully happy with. One of my brothers asked how she was getting such good looking big plants. She told him it was a secret.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I love hearing that! My chickens free range, and go all kinda places they shouldn't go...someday I might try penning 'em up and trying that deep litter system.

 

[Hinotori]

The large fowl are only penned right now because they ate half my unripe blueberries a couple weeks ago. No ranging until berries are ripe and gone. Normally I Let them out during the day. The pen is closed at night because of coyotes. Even the cats are called in at night for that reason. Yes my cats come when called.

 

[tortoise]

I'm seriously considering the limewash. I know one of the places I got bugs on me is a gate some of the free range birds roost on.

 

[waretrop]

Omgosh!!! My chickens got 120 pounds of sand today...do the ever love it...