appleacres
Chirping
- Feb 9, 2021
- 41
- 53
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I have a 2 acre, fenced orchard and I am looking for some assistance in pest control. I have been reading books for awhile that have answered a large majority of my questions about training, but I still have a few questions about guinea hens.
1. What number of Guineas would I need to make a noticeable difference per acre of land? I was hoping to have around 15 total on a 2 acre area.
2. There is a 8' deer fence around the orchard, but fox can still easily get in, so I am planning on having a secure coop. Will the guineas lay eggs in this coop if I make a simulated 'woods' environment with some grasses and leaves in nesting boxes or will they just ignore it and lay eggs wherever? If I wanted to move them into a second fenced in area, where we had some blueberries and raspberries, would they still go back to the coop if they were in this new area or if you move the coop around (like a chicken tractor), do they get confused? (planning on rewarding them with white millet for returning to coop).
3. Will they go eating in areas that I haven't mowed yet? I have heard they prefer areas with short grass, but we do not use herbicides, so we slowly mow the whole orchard and there are areas where the grass, clover and vetch can get a few feet high before mowing.
4. I already work 7 days a week on my farm, and I am happy to do some training, but I don't want them ending up a quarter of a mile away on a neighbors property or on the roof or in the tree limbs in the woods. If I clip their wings will they still be able to fly a little bit, for example, up into an apple tree where apple pests like plum curculio are crawling around? How often do you need to clip their wings? Has anyone tried pinioning, it sounds a bit extreme, but I definitely want to make sure they don't end up wandering far away.
5. Will they eat apples that we throw on the ground (we hand thin our trees to make the apples the size you would see in a grocery store, if we didn't do this they would all be tiny)--these thinned apples can have insect larvae in them--but NOT eat the apples we leave growing on the trees? I don't want them to get a taste for them, and then fly into the trees and start pecking at the actual fruit crop!
Thanks!
Molly
1. What number of Guineas would I need to make a noticeable difference per acre of land? I was hoping to have around 15 total on a 2 acre area.
2. There is a 8' deer fence around the orchard, but fox can still easily get in, so I am planning on having a secure coop. Will the guineas lay eggs in this coop if I make a simulated 'woods' environment with some grasses and leaves in nesting boxes or will they just ignore it and lay eggs wherever? If I wanted to move them into a second fenced in area, where we had some blueberries and raspberries, would they still go back to the coop if they were in this new area or if you move the coop around (like a chicken tractor), do they get confused? (planning on rewarding them with white millet for returning to coop).
3. Will they go eating in areas that I haven't mowed yet? I have heard they prefer areas with short grass, but we do not use herbicides, so we slowly mow the whole orchard and there are areas where the grass, clover and vetch can get a few feet high before mowing.
4. I already work 7 days a week on my farm, and I am happy to do some training, but I don't want them ending up a quarter of a mile away on a neighbors property or on the roof or in the tree limbs in the woods. If I clip their wings will they still be able to fly a little bit, for example, up into an apple tree where apple pests like plum curculio are crawling around? How often do you need to clip their wings? Has anyone tried pinioning, it sounds a bit extreme, but I definitely want to make sure they don't end up wandering far away.
5. Will they eat apples that we throw on the ground (we hand thin our trees to make the apples the size you would see in a grocery store, if we didn't do this they would all be tiny)--these thinned apples can have insect larvae in them--but NOT eat the apples we leave growing on the trees? I don't want them to get a taste for them, and then fly into the trees and start pecking at the actual fruit crop!
Thanks!
Molly