Farmers brace for swarms of grasshoppers

[k0xxx]

It looks like nature is going to make things even more "interesting" for some of our friends and farmers out west. Yeesh! I hate to think of what might be next.

Farmers brace for swarms of grasshoppers

If it isn't a drought, then it's a bitter winter, or spring floods, now it's the bugs. It takes a lot more fortitude than I have to be a farmer.

 

[dragonlaurel]

Don't chickens eat them up? They might want to free range some farm birds. They might lose less of their other crops and have a side income.

 

[k0xxx]

I had thought about that also, but it would take an very large number of chickens. Grasshopper swarms (locusts swarms) can be many miles long, and contain tens of millions of insects. If you've never seen a swarm, check out this 34 second video of a swarm in South Africa. The number of locusts just in this one spot is amazing.

Swarm

It seems as though, if you could collect a large amount of them, then dry and pulverize them, you'd have some high protein and natural chicken feed.

 

[ToLiveToLaugh]

They don't drop dead til after they've eaten everything though. Ugh. One summer in montana was MORE than enough for me to harbor a lifelong hatred of grasshopper swarms. Stripped everything that summer. Also, nothing hurts as bad as going at a gallop and getting pegged in the face by a fat old hopper. Ugh! (Note, the smiley isn't winking, it had one eye hit by a grasshopper!)

 

[Aidenbaby]

That was one of my main "reasons" for getting my girls. Once they were old enough to free-range the back yard, I didn't have any more hopper problems. On a down note, the girls also ate the enormous volume of mantids I had too. 3+ inchers in my garden getting fat on hoppers.

K0xxx is righ though. Swarms are not your normal grasshoppers. My chickies would become fat if they ever encountered one. LOL They LOVE their hoppers.

 

[rebecca100]

I would be afraid of the grasshoppers eating the chickens! LOL I have never seen a swarm I don't remember any in AZ and here in AR we don't have large amounts, but I have heard that they will devour anything in sight(plant wise) and leave barren fields. There has to be something they can do besides spray pesticides.

 

[farmerlor]

We had a grasshopper problem two years ago. Not exactly plague proportions but worse than I'd ever seen it. I let the girlies run free in the greenhouse (we lost everything that wasn't in the greenhouse to hoppers) and they saved my tomato crop.

 

[Wifezilla]

I have 5 ducks who can handle any suburban-sized issues. Come to think of it, I didn't see a single grasshopper last year.

 

[patandchickens]

(whoops, originally replied to the wrong thread here! D'oh!)

Guys, some free-ranging chickens can do a good job with like a backyard or an acre or two.

But the concept of getting chickens to deal with thousands, even tens of thousands, of acres of grasshoppers just does not make realistic sense

(Although obviously every little bit we do does count)

Pat

 

[dragonlaurel]

I wasn't talking about those threatened farmers having a handful of birds out there. I was thinking about them ordering a hundred - or more (depending on the size of the farm) dual purpose straight run/ males to raise as free range meat birds.

Too many farmers go under when they rely on a crop that gets ruined. This would give another income source that might protect their crops. They would want to have shelter for the chickens at night and good fencing or livestock dogs to keep from having many chickens "disappear". Many farms already have that. Thinking outside the box is worth a try.

Most critters know the sight and sound of their predators too. A field with lots of chickens would probably make the swarm nervous about landing right there.