Guineas vs Ticks
So this all started during the early months of last summer, when our dog was still alive......
Well I've had chickens my whole life, and had been on BYC for long enough to hear about a bird, known as the Guinea Fowl. So off we went, to a local swap meet where guineas were sold and we bought four of them. We kept them cooped up for a while then set them loose. They slept with the chickens and ducks in the coop at night, and free ranged in the yard during the day, as well as ate chicken feed from the feeder and lived a very happy life.
So we've had chickens, ducks, and guineas free ranging on our yard, and not a tick in sight for a long time, not really any other bugs either. So in March, we got ourselves a new puppy, she was a German Shepherd and was mostly black so we named her cobra. Cobra was a sweet little thing and never hurt any of the birds. Well once we got her, we started seeing ticks again., I would pull some off her, and would see more the next day. I then started to wonder, Why are there ticks on her again? Aren't the guineas doing their job? We live on less than an acre and have over 50 animals, most of which are poultry and they all range free, Are they not eating the bugs? well it started getting pretty bad, and I gave her a batch, as well as used dip, tried ACV and everything else I could think of.
Well one day Cobra killed one of the chickens, poor thing probably didn't mean to..... but I was pretty upset. So I kept her away for the chickens for about a week, in the side yard pen where we used to keep the other dog, its around 460 square feet, plenty of room. i fed her and watered her every day but that was it, I tried to ignore her as punishment for killing the chicken, and the dead thing tied around her neck. She hated it, she took it off a few times that week and ran away when I tried to put it back on her. I though she learned her lesson, so the next morning, I planned to take it off of her.
I walked toward the pen, she lay on the floor looking awfully depressed and her face turned away from me. I tried to get her up, and then i realized she wasn't breathing. She lay there stiff and dead. I flipped her over and what I saw was like nothing I had ever seen in my life. There were HUNDREDS of ticks all over her chest and legs. The big ones juicy with blood and the small ones crawling all over her dead body. I wanted to slap myself, punch myself for ignoring her and not checking her for ticks during her time out, I was mad I could have let that happen to her after what happened to our last dog. Poor, poor soul, that puppy died and I could have stopped it from happening simply by checking her and giving her a bath. I buried Cobra in the yard, and felt horrible the next few days.
I then got to thinking....Why? Why so many ticks on her with all the chickens and guineas and such wandering around? How? What was different?
Then It just hit me, and I didn't know how i couldn't have realized this before. We kept the dogs in a pen totally separated from the rest of the yard, it was completely inaccessible to any of the chickens, ducks, or guineas. Over time, the main yard was rid of its ticks, but the dog's part of the yard served as a safe haven for these ticks, where they multiplied in great numbers and became so concentrated there, because there was no place else for them to go without being eaten by our birds. This all made perfect sense.
I went to scope out the dog's little fenced off part of the yard, and it did not take long a t all to locate a tick. If I looked at the ground for ten seconds, I would see about five or so ticks crawling casually on the ground. This place was also overgrown with weeds, mostly foxtails. On the top of every foxtail, there were at least 7 to 10 ticks, EVERY FOXTAIL! This was crazy, the ticks were litterally without a doubt everywhere. There were probably thousands just in that little fenced off part of the yard. So then I planned an extermination, by the method of guineas. I would leave the guineas in there for a series of weeks and check the progress.
This is the tick infested environment.
These were the only foxtails after the guineas were in there for a week. I couldn't take pictures of them before, but there were much, much more of them on there.
Our Exterminators
The guineas have been in there already for one week, and I have to say I am surprised at what a great job they have done. Only a few foxtails carried maybe one or two ticks, and on the ground I saw absolutely NONE. I haven't fed them at all, they've been living off of pure forage. The plan is to leave them in there for another week to make sure the ticks are gone, then mow down all the weeds and grass, and finally, let the gates open so the guineas, chickens, and ducks can wander in and out of there freely. This Guinea v.s. Tick war shall be won by next month, the guineas being the victors. Sound like a good plan?
So if any of you are wondering if guineas really can eat all the ticks off your property, they truly can, especially provided that forage is the only means they have to eat.
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