Does anyone have experience with using free-range chickens in a mixed orchard (pit - peach, plum, etc. and pome - apple, per, etc.) to control adult stage of insects emerging from the soil, such as borers, plum curicelo (spelling ?), etc.
Are there pesticides that can supplement the pest control by chickens that will not harm chickens (or eggs) that consume insects that are killed by the pesticide?
We would like to use minimum pesticides, but here in humid Zone 8 Texas the insects damage too much fruit, expecially pits.
References would be welcome, but hands-on experience would be the best of all.
Thanks,
Some farmers embellished this chicken-scratching system a bit by introducing a few calves into the orchard. It seems that plum curculio drop to the ground when infested trees are vibrated. Modern pest managers use a stick to strike the tree in order to see if any curculio dropped into a sheet on the ground. The calves would rub on the tree, dislodging the insects that were then consumed by the waiting hungry chickens. That, folks, is an environmentally safe way to kill insects and cut down on chicken feed costs at the same time. Source
Idyllwild
jafar
Marsha H
Viron
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