I had just finished feeding the chickens when I decided to inspect the electric fence that protects them from predators. Since it is hooked to the fence that attempts to protect the garden from rabbits and deer and stuff, I decided to inspect that one, too. Since I was already out there, I decided to take a look through the garden. I found a couple cucumbers, munched on some raw peas...
And noticed that something had been pruning my tomato vines (which are big and healthy and full of *green* tomatoes ). Ah, the first tomato hornworm of the year! Goodie!
So, I shook the vine and listened for the little tick tick tick. Ah, there he is! Even though it was getting dark, I found the little caterpillar easily.
So, I plucked it off, hooked the fence back up, and took the tomato worm and a grasshopper I had found earlier to the chicken pen. They were all sleeping, but my son's favorite chicken (the only one old enough to lay) was only too willing to grab the grasshopper out of my fingers. After that, I gave her the tomato worm. She had a bit of a rough time with it. :-)
You might not be able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but all it takes is a hen to turn a bug into an egg.
As soon as the corn is all harvested, I'll let the chickens out so they can get some free protein. I need to fatten the roosters up so we can enjoy some stir-fried chicken, roasted chicken, chicken pie, chicken soup, fried chicken..... :-)
I wonder if you can buy those little wasps from an organic growers' supply company or something. A larger scale grower would certainly be able to benefit from them.
As for us, the few we find are simply turned into chicken food :-) I found another yesterday. It was a huge, fat one. Poor little henny penny could barely choke it down. She managed, though. :-)
Probably not, but I doubt if that bug will get much sympathy from anyone who has had their tomatoes 'pruned' by the little monsters. They munched on some of the fruit, too.
By the way, my son found one last night, and I found another four today. That hen is going to get fat on them. :-) I'm playing favorites. She is the only one who's laying, so she gets the extra protein.
I hear from someone who uses chicken in the garden that they completely eliminate slugs, and strongly reduce weed seeds (I have to spread sluggo if I want to garden). Because they scratch, they get seeds all the way down to maybe 1/2 inch. They also do a good job with all sort of insects and grubs, good and bad. Of course, they will eliminate tomatoes and green seedlings if you let them in in the summer. She only lets them in for the month before spring planting, approximately April 15-May 15, but that is enough. I suppose one could have the compost pile in the kitchen pen, and get free turning and some nitrogenization.
I haven't seen any parasitic wasp pupae yet, but we managed to pluck about twenty hornworms off the tomatoes today. They are doing some serious munching.
Most of them went to the one hen who is laying. We took her out of the pen, held out a handful of worms, and let her take her pick. She has to shake the worm a bit to get it to deflate, then she swallows it.
Interestingly enough, some of the worms were mostly black. I have never seen a black tomato worm before.
Another twenty or thirty found this late afternoon. The kids had a great time hunting, capturing, and feeding them to the chickens. The other pullets got a taste once everyone's favorite hen got so full she refused to eat another bite. LOL
The kids and chickens enjoyed it greatly, but the bugs are starting to do some serous damage. Fortunately, there are 50 or 60 less bugs than before. I have never seen an infestation that bad. I'm tempted to let one grow to maturity just to see what the moth looks like.
Are these pests congregated on one or two plants? Or spread throughout the entire crop? If you can localize the source it might save what's left of your burgeoning harvest.
They were spread out pretty evenly among fifteen or so plants. I say 'were' because we only managed to find one today -- much to the disappointment of the kids. Also, the damaged ends of the vines were scabbed over.
We found a few munched tomatoes, and there is some bare foliage, but I don't think the bugs ate more than a few percent of the vines. They may have actually done us a favor by pruning the vines a bit and also stressing them enough to convince them to ripen the tomatoes. I managed to pick a couple pounds of tomatoes, and a whole bunch of them are starting to ripen. We might have to start canning or freezing in a week or two.
Paul was very delighted to get a double-yolk egg this morning. I told him that maybe Racetrack (the name he gave his hen) gave him that egg because he fed her so many bugs. She really is the best laying hen I have ever seen. I think I'll buy a dozen black sex link pullets next year. She only missed one day since the day she started laying, and that is exceptional even for a hen in her peak. Most start laying an egg or two a week, and take a while to get to peak production.
I've found the Australorps (sp?) to be reliable layers. This is only the second year for my Aracuna but she seems to be a steady layer also easy to tell since she is the only one laying blue/green eggs.
We still only have one layer. The others are too young. I'm expecting the Isa Browns to do very well. The Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds are old classics, and ought to be steady layers for a long time. I don't know what breed the white ones are (they were unexpected extras that someone else had ordered but didn't pick up), so I don't know what to expect from them. They look somewhat like leghorns, but have red earlobes.
I'm glad to hear the araucanas are reliable layers. We have ten of them (should have had an even dozen, but the person doing the sexing must have had a bad day). We had gotten a pastel blue egg from a farm before we moved up here, so when I found out what kind of chicken did that, I ordered some.
I certainly have no problem getting my middle child to eat eggs. He loves to run out there and collect the egg from his pet hen, and wants me or his mother to cook it up right away. We're enjoying the birds a whole lot more than I thought we would.
I agree about the Barred rocks and RIR's being nice reliable standby's :-) Our local feed store has gotten in the fall chicks. I like to get them right now as the tend to start laying right about the time the older hens quit for the winter. I picked up 2 of each along with a couple of ornamental bantams, and dad bought me 3 more aracauanas. All are sexed as hens.
By far tho', my most reliable layers have been red sex links, and also turkens. The turkens were good for about 3 years before they slowed down, and tended to be better winter layers.
Don't mourn the Aracauna roosters! They are very nice birds, and I've never had a mean one... One rooster per 5 to 10 hens is about right but if your hens start getting bald backs, you may wish to make soup out of one or find it a good home. I've also found aracaunas to be one of my longer lived birds. My one roo' is about 8 years old now.
I have friends who have them (outside of the city); however, we cannot have them as the City only allows hens. A neighbor had one rooster in her batch; fortunately, I knew of a good home for it. In fact the new folks had one of their older and getting mean roosters for dinner and the new guy took over.
They are indeed beautiful birds!
snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net writes:
Because my chickens are five different varieties, each laying a slightly different color/shape egg, a full basket of eggs looks like an Easter basket. I got two more Araucanas this year to join the single one, hoping to get a slightly different color egg from them. The light-colored one looks like a Buff Orphington (sp) with a smaller comb, etc., not at all like the other two. Without the typical face/head, one would never guess it's not a Buff Orphington like the one I already had.
The first place my granddaughters go (3 and 5) is the chicken house to see if there are any eggs. So do friends' youngsters. My daughter-in-law did an experiment the first time they took home eggs. She told the girls they would try G.G.'s eggs and the store eggs and see which they liked best. She unwisely cooked the fresh eggs first. Though the younger one did eat the store eggs, the older one took one bite and that was the end of that. She will no longer willingly eat store eggs. I must admit, before these chickens became part of our lives, I had forgotten how real eggs tasted, it having been 30 years or so. There went any possibility of ever ordering eggs in a restaurant again!
Part of that enjoyment extends to no slugs or bugs where they are allowed to roam, such a bonus!
It's easy to waste a lot of time watching them, especially if they are allowed to roam semi-freely. Their soothing calls to each other, and to us, are so soothing, a true relaxant. :-)
We had chickens all during my childhood, and my grandparents had layers (commercial though not caged like today!), but I don't remember them each being so unique as ours are. My perception had been that of many, that chickens are stupid creatures. However, that is most definitely not true as observation reveals. They surely cannot think as we commonly perceive, but one left me to wonder a year ago spring. I had left the back screen door open for the cat, not even considering the chickens who often liked to congregate on the back step to see what goodies would be brought out to them. When looking into the utility room, right in front of the door had been left a most unwelcome gift. After shooing them away and cleaning up the mess, I closed the door of course. About half an hour later, I went outside and laying in the middle of the back step was an egg! As you know, chickens don't usually just lay their eggs in open, unprotected area, but there it was. It was like an apology for the indiscretion.
Yup, they are great fun, and good for the garden as well. What a deal.
You would need a few hens, too. It's no fun collecting bugs if you don't have a chicken to feed it to.
By the way, all I found today were two small bugs. The leaves are starting to grow back on the affected vines. They looked devastated when it was happening, but most of the damage was to the tops of plants. There are still plenty of leaves. The chickens are enjoying the half-eaten green tomatoes that we have found.
I just counted all the chickens to make sure we didn't lose any that I don't know about. It turns out that we have 38 hens. That's enough for three roosters. We are keeping my youngest son's pet named 'stripe', who is a beautiful red and gold bird (I don't know what breed). We are also keeping a red Araukana mix who is starting to look rather handsome. We need to choose one of the black and white Araukana mix roosters as a third. A lot of them have bent toes that look genetic, so it may be a simple matter to choose one with good feet LOL.
Right now, we're working on new digs for them. I need to make some nest boxes and a big 100 pound feeder to put into the lean-to behind the pole barn with the goats. We just put in a woven wire fence, so the chickens and goats will have plenty of room to roam, and plenty of greens to eat. I haven't quite decided what to do with the guineas. They are supposed to be our free range bug patrol, but they keep hanging around the chicken pen. We let them in at night to keep them save. We already lost two -- probably to that hawk that ate one of our barred rocks.
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