Thoughts on No Pest and Vapona strips

I am an Organic person as much as I can be. I have been against No Pest because of the harmful chemicals. But when lice hit so hard last Spring I caved in and bought a No Pest strip. I haven't seen any lice in that coop since. I do have lice now in the bantam coop and I just bought a No Pest for there as well. All Spring and Summer, the windows have been open and we have whirly vents on the roof for air circulation as well.

What do you do in the winter, keep a window open to ensure good air flow? Do you think eggs from a coop with a No Pest strip are still safe to eat?

What are your thoughts, feelings, uses?

When we used to have them in the house, it seemed to take 2 days to kill a mosquito. So I think the amount of pesticide in the air is very low.

How about putting them up for one week each month?

It is very safe for you to eat the eggs and the bird.

After having some mites crawl on me and feeling totally creeped out by it, I could only imagine how miserable it was to be a chicken, sitting there while those horrid little blood suckers creeped on them every night. I had tried rotenone and DE and still there were lice/mites problems. At some point my responsibiity to ensure a comfortable and healthy existence for my birds over-rides my feelings about pesticides. By the way, inhaling clouds of rotenone dust is WAY worse for chickens and humans than anything that might come off a pest strip!

I keep a pest strip in the hen house all winter. I also keep the two windows cracked ever so slightly to let some of the moist air out. Chickens are very moist and dusty, not sure how the two exist together but they seem to in a hen house! I also note that over time dust accumulates on the pest strip an you have to blow it off, as I'd think a coating of dust would impeded its effectiveness.

Harrops, if you feel you'd like to minimize the exposure, instead of taking the strip all the way out of its cover, maybe just have some sticking out and tape the package shut onto the rest of the strip. Less surface strip area exposed to the air.

We eat the eggs and hatch the eggs. Have never noticed a change in chicken health, hatchability or chick health.

Where do you buy them from?

Canadian Tire has them.

Thanks Fowler.

I use them, found they didnt work so well this summer when all the air was flowing through, so keep that in mind if you over ventilate your coop. We keep them in the coops all winter and they seem to keep most problems in check. I also eprinex all my birds prior to them getting put together as an added step.

I dont think they would hard the birds or the eggs personally, like fowler said there is not a high dose in the air, just enough to kill the bugs.

Hidden River wrote:I use them, found they didnt work so well this summer when all the air was flowing through, so keep that in mind if you over ventilate your coop. We keep them in the coops all winter and they seem to keep most problems in check. I also eprinex all my birds prior to them getting put together as an added step.

I dont think they would hard the birds or the eggs personally, like fowler said there is not a high dose in the air, just enough to kill the bugs.

Agreed- I use them in my coop in winter when the doors are closed and they sure keep the crawlers down.

I first used them when my pet garter snake got mites. This was about 30 years ago. One went into the terrarium and you could see the snake twitching his skin as the mites came out from under the scales. In 15 minutes the twitching was over and I took out the strip. The mites were gone and the snake stayed healthy for a good long time.

Sue

I tried them and they didn't work at all for us. Here you have to be ventilated or you'll have all kinds of problems. Summer/winter I gave it a shot and noticed no difference.

if you worm your birds with Ivomec it will get rid of external parasites as well

pops coops wrote:if you worm your birds with Ivomec it will get rid of external parasites as well

This brings up another of my questions pops coops - Why Ivomec over Eprinex? I am using Eprinex right now. Do you need repeat treatments with Ivomec?

harrop'shens wrote:

pops coops wrote:if you worm your birds with Ivomec it will get rid of external parasites as well

This brings up another of my questions pops coops - Why Ivomec over Eprinex? I am using Eprinex right now. Do you need repeat treatments with Ivomec?

Ivomec and Eprinex are basically used for the same things, same coverage, but the Eprinex is safer. It has no meat/milk withdrawl so for us no egg withdrawl. The ivomectin has a 4 week meat withdrawl, and says not to use on dairy cattle period, so in my mind I would not feel safe usuing Ivomec on anything I get eggs from. You would have to have a very long withdrawl in my mind for that.

I usually use Eprinex as well Hidden, but because ivermectin is used to worm people as well, I am not as concerned using it in my birds and having a long withholding period. That is the troulbe with off label use, we just have to use our best judgement.

I thought someone posted Eprinex is also used to worm people? Maybe not a bad idea to not wear gloves when we do it!

chickeesmom wrote:I thought someone posted Eprinex is also used to worm people? Maybe not a bad idea to not wear gloves when we do it!

We just did all our birds yesterday, boostered them with ILT vaccine and Eprinex and moved to the communal coops. I have to say the rubber gloves only lasted 5 birds before they were ripped, so my hubby and me should be worm free as well, and safe from getting ILT.

chickeesmom wrote:I thought someone posted Eprinex is also used to worm people? Maybe not a bad idea to not wear gloves when we do it!

That was me. I wanted to use it on my lousy students and would not hesitate to put a couple drops on my head if I got lice from the kids.

Sue

I never use glove with chooks or cattle and I bet I have been very worm free for the last 20 years!!!

I don't have lice or mites in my coops and haven't had them for over 9 or 10 years and I use dusting powder each time I clean the coops and I also use the no pest strips but I don't believe that they give you protection for up to 4 months because I noticed a spider web with a healthy looking spider in it living fairly close to the strip and he is doing fine but just maybe the dust on the strip has impeded it's ability to do the job completely.