Pest Control Sprays

[Nikpal123]

Pest control and chickens questions…

Our chickens and guineas are only 7 weeks old, and are in a coop/run in the back of our yard full time. No free ranging yet, and not for at least another month or so.

We live on the edge of the woods, so mosquitos are out of control right now and we have been in a losing battle with armyworms- which are now moths, and they have been destroying our grass. Our pest company sprayed Permethrin SFR and it did next to nothing to help either problem. Do I have any other options? Since the chickens don’t have access to the yard, can we spray something stronger, but not next to the coop and run, that we might not be able to if they were free ranging? Prior to having chickens, we used what our neighbor, who has more acreage and horses, recommended and uses for his property which is Wisdom TC Flowable. Googling brings up conflicting views on using that when having chickens. We want to be able to enjoy our yard and spend more time around the chickens and between these two pests we’ve been unable to.

Photo to show how set back the coop and run is in the backyard. Thanks for any help!

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi,

Those moths I know most chickens would go nuts over and have a blast catching them.

As for mosquitoes, we too have a forest behind our home, with a creek down the hill. We've gotten them down to probably 75% less than usual by doing the following:

Sprinkle First Saturday's Lime in all marshy areas (doesn't hurt fish, frogs, etc., chicken safe.) Be sure there's nothing anywhere around that holds water (besides pet dishes). Check clogged eves on your home even.

Dunks we bought on Amazon. 1/2 of a dunk put in a 5-gallon pail half full of water. We put 3 buckets along the edge of the woods. Female mosquitoes lay their eggs in there and they die.

Bug Zapper. We had one, and got another now.

And lastly, this stuff works.

https://off.com/en-us/product/backyard/bug-control

​

 

[BDutch]

Do I have any other options? Since the chickens don’t have access to the yard,

Let the chickens in the yard to eat the bugs.
I had ticks (Lyme) in my back yard before I had free ranging chickens. But not anymore. Chickens are wonderful bug catchers.

PS dont combine this with poisons. My backyard is organic and a healthy environment for my chickens.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Permethrin isn't going to hurt anything other than insects and the BT is a bacillia, a biological control. About as benign as you can get.

 

[BDutch]

Permethrin isn't going to hurt anything other than insects and the BT is a bacillia, a biological control. About as benign as you can get.

Permethrin and similar poisons kills a lot of insects. About 75% of the insects vanished in less than 50 years where I live. There are way less songbirds and swallows who eat insects nowadays.
The result is we have more nasty plagues nowadays. Like an explosion of hairy caterpillars who hairs give a nasty irritation. These caterpillars only live in oak trees.
The Dutch name is eikenprocessierups. Google translate: oak processionary caterpillar.