Poultry will naturally take a dust bath every day to keep themselves clean.

The dust helps remove excess oil and make their bodies less desirable to parasites

Murillo and Mullen’s research paper[1] demonstrated the addition of DE to poultry dust box will reduce the mite numbers. When the DE dust boxes were removed, the mite growth returned.

The sand acts as a carrier to facilitate movement of DE into the feathers. DE then acts on the mites by abrasion and adsorption of surface wax, killing mites via desiccation.

The concentrated availability of DE with the fine sand mixture in a dedicated poultry dust box is important to achieve mite suppression.

Poultry DE dust boxes to be placed in a dark and not too busy area of the chicken coop.