Lawn chemicals and baby chicks...

[shandea]

We have a lawn service who comes out once ever 2 months or so. I was too late in calling to cancel this service in the backyard when we got our chicks. They came out and put down fertilizer and pre-emergent weed control last week. Now I'm sad because my chicks can't go out on the grass! My question is, how long do I need to wait before it's safe? A good rain? Wash the area with a water hose? A season (hopefully not!)?

I have a call into the company to find out exactly what they use, AND to tell them to cancel it. All it said on the flyer they left was to keep pets and people off of it for 2 hours. Anyone have any advice for this situation?

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[pegbo]

I think I would wait a week to be on the safe side. You would want your babies to get sick! That should give it enough time to have worked down into the soil.

 

[hencackle]

If you want to use lawn/garden products that are safe enough to use around pets & children, try www.gardensalive.com. Their pre-emergent is called WOW! and is corn-based.
I use their fertilizers in my garden and on houseplants and I am very happy with their products.
Stephanie

 

[shandea]

That looks great... thanks! We try to live as naturally as possible and don't really like using this lawn stuff, but after 7 years of having an ugly lawn (we have a steeply sloped front yard and the seed washes away), we paid someone to power seed/aerate. We also broke down and had them do something to control the weeds bc we are overrun every year.

This spring though, we finally have grass... maybe with the healthy grass we won't have so many weeds now. Perhaps we should just get the service to power seed every other year or so and nix the chemicals.