which mosquito control can my chooks and I eat ?

[GodofPecking]

I am wanting to know which kitchen item I can use to pour or place into standing water that pools up near my house. I have no interest in any peddled commercial product whatsoever, I don't care how advertised as 'non-toxic' it is. If it is not intended for humans to eat then I don't want it in the chooks and their eggs which I do eat.

I did pour out a container of cooking oil which had been sitting about on the shelf for some time, that seemed to annoy the living daylights out of the pesky little whatnots. There are not just the wrigglers, there are dozens per square meter that buzz back and forth over the surface. When they get to breeding age they are very big nasty things.

A plant would also be ok, I could put something like that into the water, but absolutely nothing that you buy unless it is intended to be human food, because that is what it will become immediately in the food chain. Unless it is a plant I can grow in the garden.

Has anyone been successful at this before ? how did you go ?

 

[bobbi-j]

Citronella plants are supposed to repel mosquitoes. Could you do some landscaping to fill in the low spots that collect water?

 

[GodofPecking]

it's on public land beside the road. So I can't do much there.

I did go look at it today. The water is still there of course, it takes ages to drain, but it looks a bit different. There is a bit of a surface to the water because of the cooking oil, but it doesn't look very oily. The mosquitoes are totally different too, there are almost none left. I didn't see a single wriggler under the water, but there were other kinds of small critters swimming about as normal. I guess it has worked very well on the mosquitoes but hasn't done any real damage to the other life in the water. Either way, it worked pretty well, I'll be able to eat the eggs safely. I used about a liter, so I figure there is probably still a better way to do things than that.