North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>]

   Hmmm... I didn't have these terrible experiences.  We started with 5 
baby Campbells in March, I don't remember when we started letting them in 
the garden.  Japanese beetles don't appear till the end of May, run for 
about 6 weeks.  There is a small pond in the garden area, one reason for 
getting the ducks was in hopes of helping that pond to hold water better, 
which they did do.  The ducks spent a lot of time in the pond, but they did 
wander through the garden, and in Jap beetle season they would race to the 
smartweed patch and snatch beetles like crazy.  They'd raid that patch every 
few hours.  The ducks were locked up at night.  It was the Muscovies who 
were so fond of pepper plants, so we had to fence them out of that area.
   I think, in response to Muffy's question regarding pigs, not to mention 
the ducks, chickens, geese, etc, the trick is not to have the animals in the 
garden or orchard continuously day and night.  If they are hungry when they 
are released, they will quickly scarf up as much food as possible, whether 
it be drops or bugs or grass (in the case of sheep) and then in an hour or 
three they can be penned up again.  (Something that can be time consuming in 
the case of ducks, as I well know, and in the case of banties, practically 
impossible.)  If left after they have satisfied their initial hunger, they 
will start in on whatever nefarious "hobbies" their species enjoys, which in 
practically all cases listed consists of some form of grubbing in the 
ground.  The one exception I can think to this approach would be banties for 
curculio control.  They probably need to be on hand most of the time 
curculios are active, both in egg laying season and when the fruit is 
falling, and in general banties don't do as much damage as the other 
creatures.  They'd LIKE to do as much damage, but as they weigh 1 to 1 1/2 
lbs apeice, they just can't compared to 5-6 lb hens.  Now that I'm finally 
getting smart enough to take my own advice and put my plums and peaches all 
in a single block, (something I am doing now on the second go around) I'm 
thinking I should fence in the area, clip some banty wings and run a mama 
and some youngsters in there, with a little closed in cage for putting food 
and perches in.   For a month or so the mama will hover the chicks by choice 
in a nice safe cage at night, and hopefully they will use the perches after 
that till they get big enough to sleep in the trees.  Banties multiply so 
fast, I sort of regard them as interchangeable units.  I guess the local 
poultry auction makes it easier for me to acquire or get rid of banties 
compared to those of you in more civilized and "enlightened" areas.  At the 
beginning I was buying a lot of little roosters cheaply, which fed the local 
dogs and strays till we and the chickens got our act together.  I've read 
that the Hmong like small chickens, so it might be possible to get rid of 
all the surplus at the end of the summer, keeping only a few well protected 
adults to start again next year.  Or buy chicks every year, something a bit 
iffy with banties I think.
   There are slugs working on my early peas, something I haven't had to 
worry about for several years.  But since our new neighbors dogs killed our 
ducks last spring, we have not dared to get more.  Their 3 large dogs roam 
for miles, coming through our place so frequently that our dogs don't even 
bark to warn us anymore.  My husband now keeps cayenne pepper sprinkled 
around the chicken cages since another set of dogs (same extended family 
owns them, large German shepards are their preferred breed) spent an entire 
night chewing through 1/2" chipboard and killed all the chickens in one 
cage.   He keeps the .22 handy but the *&^%$**  dogs are too sneaky for us. 
The banties running loose seem to be at least as safe as the caged ones, as 
they stick to the trees where they can easily escape.  Any ideas on the dog 
front would be welcome.
Donna
P.S.  Something that might interest some of you is that if you keep small 
chickens, you will get to see lots more hawks, and up closer than most 
people see them.  I don't mind losing a few for that privilege.