The flowers out back have been destroyed by grasshoppers. I was summoned by the wife to catch them and feed them to the chickens last night. It has been a long time sense I have tried to catch a grasshopper and let me tell you, either they are getting faster or I am getting slower. After a twenty minute battle, I managed to catch only about eight or nine and headed to the chicken pen.
We let them suckers go and in less than a second the chickens were looking at us wanting more.
So I headed to the barn and scooped out at least fifty worms to see how long it took them to get them down. It took less than a minute.
I got the cricket farm all set up and ready tonight. The wife is picking them up tomorrow while she is in town. It will take a month or so to get them up and going but when they do, I will be able to feed the chickens about 100 crickets at a time once a week.
Seriously get turkeys, they are great grasshopper hunters and the only things we've found that they eat in the gardens are a few nibbles of lettuce, they love onion, garlic and chive tops but NEVER have touch a tomato or any of the other produce. Oh! they also love the apple drops( fallen apples) It's frustrating I know and I think we're in for a bad year with grasshoppers too. Good luck ;o)
ReplyDeletefly swatters help to stun them so you can catch them easier
ReplyDeleteThe area where the flowers are is right next to the patio and the cookers. I plan on getting turkeys in the future but I don't think I want them that close to where we do all the cooking and entertaining. Big birds leave big droppings. I guess for the time being I will have to invest in some fly swatters. Thanks for the comments.
ReplyDeleteThat they dooooo, leave big droppings,*wink* LOL! Montana State University developed a bacteria that only affects grasshoppers. They added this bacteria to bran flakes and sell it. You make a perimeter around what you want protected by placing these flakes, the grass hoppers eat the flakes and die, then they eat their dead and die from that as well. This will not affect water, birds, cats, dogs or any other animals. I can't recall the name but maybe you can do a search on it through MSU.
ReplyDelete