Chickens in the garden

[NezChick2020]

I want to put my 5 chickens in my 16x16 garden to have them eat away some of the weeds and stuff before I cover for winter. I have used some pesticides in it but not since early summer. Just wanted opinions on if by now, several months later it would be safe for them? I know harvesting the garden after pesticides is a few days some times but with them digging and scratching in the dirt, don’t want any residual pesticide to hurt them. Thoughts?

 

[CluckerFamily]

Very good question! I have never used pesticides in the garden, I stick to adding hanging baskets to the vegetable garden area to deter some bugs while marigold seem to deter the rest, except those potato bugs (I have to pick those off myself).
I will be watching this thread, there are a lot of gardeners on BYC!

 

[NatJ]

I want to put my 5 chickens in my 16x16 garden to have them eat away some of the weeds and stuff before I cover for winter. I have used some pesticides in it but not since early summer. Just wanted opinions on if by now, several months later it would be safe for them? I know harvesting the garden after pesticides is a few days some times but with them digging and scratching in the dirt, don’t want any residual pesticide to hurt them. Thoughts?

It probably depends on what pesticides.
What did you use?
When did you most recently use it? (At least what month, if you cannot be more precise than that.)

 

[imnukensc]

Put the chickens in the garden. There isn't any residual pesticide left to worry about.

 

[NezChick2020]

It probably depends on what pesticides.
What did you use?
When did you most recently use it? (At least what month, if you cannot be more precise than that.)

 

[NezChick2020]

Seven and dragon dust. But haven’t used anything since July.

 

[NatJ]

Seven and dragon dust. But haven’t used anything since July.

I had to look those up, and I think autocorrect messed with the spellings

Assuming you meant "Sevin" and "Dragoon Dust," I see they both contain carbaryl, and Dragoon Dust also contains copper.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/what-if-chicks-eat-sevin.349041/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sevin-dust-and-spray-is-it-safe.1162915/

Several threads where people talk about using Sevin on their chickens. Some folks say it's safe to put directly on the chickens or in their dust bath, some say not.

I say that if anyone is dusting a chicken with it, or putting it in the dust bath, then we know the chicken is going to get some in their mouth the next time they preen their feathers.

So I am confident the chickens will not drop dead from any remaining Sevin in the garden. Whether it's a good idea to let them in there, I don't know, but any harm is likely to be relatively small and hard to notice.

I also find that for Sevin, you're supposed to wait various amounts of time to harvest various vegetables. The longest I could find was 21 days for some crops. Since you last applied it in July, and it's now November, that's about four times the maximum wait time, so probably fine for chickens or anything else.

For copper (also an ingredient in Dragoon dust), I can find that some amounts of copper can be toxic to poultry, but I don't think the amount left in the garden after using the pesticide is going to be high enough to hurt the chickens.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Agree with others that it’s probably OK. In the future I’d you know you’ll allow your flock in, avoid any pesticides.

Heck, letting your flock to clean up bugs, weeds, larvae, etc. after the season may reduce your need for chemical pesticides and herbicides.

 

[bchanfcb1987]

It is a good idea to have a checklist that you can use to assess whether the gardener you are speaking to, is able to offer a full maintenance service that meets your needs. Also, having a checklist removes the emotion from the exercise and will help you to look at it more objectively.