Will chickens help control STINK BUGS!!!!

[aggie9296]

Mine will not eat stink bugs or any bug with orange or red on it (including lady bugs or love bugs). They do love cicadas, mole crickets, cinch bugs, spiders, and palmetto bugs (along with any other type of roach). So they do help some with bug control.

 

[Alas]

As far as I know, nothing eats stink bugs. I know my chickens, turkeys, geese and ducks do not. I had major problems with the stink bugs destroying my tomato plants this summer. I finally resorted to pesticides, which didnt have any effect on them. I read somewhere that spraying dish soap mixed with water will deter them from your plants. My garden was too far gone by the time I heard about it, so I didn't try it yet. My brother tells me that soaking tobacco in water and spraying your plants with the water will deter them. I cant stand the smell though. I am thinking of building a frame of PVC and covering it with mosquito netting or something similar.

 

[capassar]

I'm in Virginia and my chickens (Barred Rock, New Hampshire Red, Americauna)love stinkbugs and will eat as many as I throw their way! My only concern is that if they eat too many it will imbalance their diets. Anybody?

 

[Kassaundra]

maizy'smom :

This is very depressing. Part of the reason I got chickens was for insect control. Over the last three years or so, I have spent less and less time in my garden because of the mosquitos. I am a mosquito magnet. If there is one in a 50 mile radius in the dead of January, it will find me! (And leave my DH completely unscathed!) So far, it seems the only yummy bugs my girls go ga-ga for are cicadas. No stink bugs. No s$%#@^&* mosquitos. Just cicadas. Though it does make for a very entertaining game of keep-away!

mm

Build a bat house, they love mosquitoes and eat them by the thousands every night.​

 

[Kassaundra]

My chickens eat squash bugs and love them.

 

[itsmechrissy]

My husband got some commercial grade bug spray that killed off all our stink bugs in the spring...haven't seen any since (woo hoo!!!!) My girls will eat mosquitos but there are so darn many they don't put a dent into the population. I did buy a thermacell that keeps the bugs away for a 15 ft radius, it works great when i'm gardening or just hanging out in the yard. I've seen them for sale at Mennards and Walmart, usually in the camping dept. Would guess they have them at some of the sporting goods places too.

 

[Royd]

They will not eat the adult stink bugs. Living in Florida, they do a lot of crop damage to tomatoes. This year, I struggled to find any on the tomatoes, and I can only surmise that the chickens, while scratching through the garden, had consumed most of the eggs and larvae. Same with the squash bugs, rolley polleys, earwigs, black widows and cockroaches.

 

[tiny529]

I just came on here wondering the same thing. Last year the stink bugs were insane (I counted no less than 100 on a single window one day). They are starting up now, but so far, they haven't swarmed. I assume that they will soon. I'm trying the homemade stink bug traps homemade stinkbug traps, but so far I haven't caught any stinkbugs in them. The numbers in the house are still pretty low) and it's been raining too much to try them outside.

Somehow I doubt my girls will eat stinkbugs... They don't eat earthworms and will only occasionally eat slugs. I've offered them ants, wood roaches, and other insects and they don't even look their way. Though one did eat a whole toad yesterday. After reading about the hallucinogenic toxin that Eastern American Toads hold in their glands, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of day Susie the Speckled Sussex had.

 

[Aemelia]

Mine eat mosquitoes! I've seen them grab them right out of the air same with flies. The spiders that hang around in the coop though they completely overlook.

 

[ColCty]

Several people here (myself included) have chickens that gobble up stink bugs. Yet there are others here that emphatically state "Chickens do not eat stink bugs".

Any thoughts on why some chickens like them and others turn their noses up? Do they get indigestion? Could they just not be very hungry?

Our chickens don't get a lot of store feed, they do a lot of graising. They seem to like most every bug, berry, etc. that I throw to them.

I've only tried yesterday for the first time. I'll have to see if they keep liking them over the long haul.