When I got my chickens a couple of months ago, I started spending lots of time out in the pasture. They’re so much fun to watch, and since they’re my first chickens I like to watch them and see how they act.
As those first couple of weeks came and went I was driven crazy by bites all over my feet and around my waist along with some other sensitive areas we won’t talk about here. I decided to try to figure out what was eating me alive. Because of the pattern of the bites, I identifed the bites as chiggers.
Then, I found this article that talks about how this is the worst year for chiggers in thirty years.
How chiggers work is that they get onto your exposed skin usually from high grass. From there, they crawl into a tight space (like into your shoes or in your crotch or waistband) and from there they insert their little mouth like apparatus into your skin and inject enzymes that dissolve the cell walls of your skin, and that’s what they eat. They don’t burrow inside you and they don’t drink your blood. Now, I’m not an entymologist, and I don’t play one on TV and I’m sure there are many more detailed explanations you can find, but that’s the main gist of it.
So now, when I go to the pasture, I put on my chicken boots. I keep them in the car and put them on 100% of the time before I get out of my car. I haven’t had a single chigger bite since I started wearing my chicken boots while at the pasture.
I also wear them when I get my bee suit on because the combination of my bee suit and my chicken boots protects me from any bees that may have malevolent intentions. 🙂
I highly recommend getting your own pair of chicken boots (or whatever other style you want).
Just wondering, is there anything special about the chicken boots that keeps the chiggers away?
It’s just that the blades of grass don’t then touch my leg and crawl up and bite me.
Just spray your “chicken boots” with some insecticide or repellent. I use long rubber boots. It is not good for hot days but it works.
Great idea!
We wore tall rubber boots all summer long in AZ of all places! We did not know chiggers existed in AZ it was such an itchy awakening! We irrigate our land so each time we irrigate and if the weeds grow up beyond 4 inches they are a problem. The rubber boots work though!