The middle weight large fowl breeds of chickens will eat ticks and a lot of other insects and arachnids that most people don't even think about such as long leg spiders, moths, and walking sticks. Good bug foragers are Campines, Lakenvelders, Dominiques, Spanish, Sumatras, Hamburgs, Buttercups, Andalusians, and La Fleche are but a few of the old breeds that once gained the majority of their living in this manner.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9551478
I have a lot of La Fleche bantams and in my opinion they are hard to beat as insect controllers around my place. From dawn till dusk there is not a cricket or grasshopper with the nerve to make so much as a buzz for fear of being found and eaten. Of course I have to admit a little prejudice in the case of this breed. LOL
Something that I have not heard anyone mention on most of these poultry boards is the fact that chickens and some other fowl can be hosts to certain species of ticks. I found a few sites that share quite a bit of information on this subject.
Quote:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/poultry-ticks
Effects on poultry:
Chronic tick infestation can lead to severe anemia resulting in reduced egg production, loss of body weight and depression. Toxins in the saliva of the tick can also cause Tick Paralysis, characterized by progressive ascending paralysis of the leg, wing and respiratory system. Poultry ticks play intermediate host to a variety of pathogens, including Borrelia anserina, which causes Fowl Spirochetosis and Aegyptianella pullorum, which causes aegyptianellosis.....
I was also wondering if chickens could be hosts to ticks such as deer ticks that carry Lyme disease. I ran across an article written by Bill Hilton Jr., Naturalist. I am still not certain if ticks can give chickens lyme disease but I am sure that what I read years ago in an Agr. book on poultry parasites was correct. Chickens can be hosts to
specific species of ticks including the tiny deer tick. At one stage the deer tick is so tiny that it is almost impossible to see with the naked eye. So what your chickens can't see they can't eat and at this stage the prey becomes both predator and parasite. A little Sevin dust or roost spray will quickly elimiate these little pests.
http://www.hiltonpond.org/ArticleBirdTicksMain.html
I have raised a lot of guineas over the years and had as many as 300 adult breeders all at the same time. It doesn't seem to make much difference if you have 5 or 500 as long as they are free ranging they don't make a lot of noise unless they see predators. The rest of the time they range out far and wide in search of insects. If you can't stand the sounds that they make then I would suggest not buying any. As for myself their chatter and clambor is music to my ears most of the time. And other times it gave me a headache.
Guineas are death on just about anything that looks like an insect, mouse, big nasty spider, snakes up to 6 feet long, baby birds that fall out of a nest, and the occasional nest of wild rabbits. If you have a pure stand of alfalfa for hay you cannot find a better remedy for the dread alfalfa weevil than the common guinea fowl.
I had roughly 50 guineas that ran through the neighbor's 5 acre alfalfa field every day and were constantly pecking at something. I later learned that every alfalfa field in the area was eaten completely up by weevils, even the ones that had been sprayed, but the one across the road was green and thriving. The only thing the neighborhood farmers could attribute it to was the fact that there were guineas wading through it from early morning till dusk.
When the hay was mown and baled and the loaders were picking up the bales the guineas would stand all around them and as soon as they lifted a bale the guineas would rush in and gobble up every cricket and insect under those bales.
Things that guineas either don't or shouldn't eat are lady bugs, blister beetles, toad frogs, yellow jackets, and honey bees. I was told by several of the old timers that if a guinea swallowed a bee it could get stung in it's throat and die. For many years I thought this might be some old wive's tale because I saw guineas kill brown hornets and break off the stinger before they ate them and never lost one to a sting. Then one morning I saw a young guinea grab a honey bee on a blade of wet grass and swallow it whole. The young guinea began to shake it's head violently and finally spit the bee out.
The guinea went into spasms, started gasping for air, and within the span of a minute it fell over stone cold dead. That is the first and only time I ever witnessed this but now I know it can happen. Don't let your young guineas forage near bee hives. I was told that turkey poults were also suseptable to sudden death from bee stings.
Each species of domestic fowl has it's specialty. Turkeys are best at controlling spiders, hornets, june bugs, large slugs, snails,and grasshoppers. Chickens are best with small grass hoppers, crickets, flies [in cool weather], june bugs,ticks, and small insects in general. Guineas everything "except" yellow jackets, blister beetles, and bees.
The best grasshopper controllers of all the duck breeds are the Runners and Khaki Campbells. They also eat slugs and snails that invade your garden. Muscovy ducks are an all round insect destroyer even eating mosquito adults and their swimming larvae. I have even seen a few eat small rats and snakes.
Hopefully I haven't been excessively wordy but I felt some of the information might prove helpful in the future, in your selection for control of specific insects, and for controlling the ticks around your property. Dean
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"Laura" <lauraatlaw@...> wrote:
Do chickens eat ticks? I know that guinea hens do, but do chickens? We
are starting out with our first batch of chicks now who I hope will
help with the ticks. I would like to have some guinea hens....but all
the talk of how loud they are have made me hesitant to get any. Are
guinea hens really that loud? Do they "chat" constantly or just when
something sets them off? If I only had 4 or 5 would that make the
noise level any better?
Thanks in advance!
Laura
CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
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