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["Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>]



Alan,  I have to agree with you on the guineas.  Only desperation in the tick department convinced me to get them, and they were every bit as horrible up close as I had noted them to be in casual encounters.  They were also useless in dealing with ticks.  Those people I have met who have had good results with guineas controlling ticks tend to have 50-100 of the foul things running around.  Does anyone know of anyone who has found guineas useful in orchards?  I remember reading in the Mother Earth News that the family that won their food self sufficiency prize found guineas worse than useless.  They said the guineas roamed the fields picking bees from the flowers and nearly wiped out their beehives.  On the other hand they praised banties for producing large amounts of meat for very little feed.  They said that heavy hens tried to bury them in eggs in the spring and then laid poorly in the heat, but that lightweight layers did well for them.  We despise skinny nervous laying hens, and I sure had my share of them back when I was first learning about chickens and how not to waste your money by having too many of them.  For a family of 5, 8 hens paid me 2:1 on the dollar.  On 12 hens I broke even.  On 25 hens I lost $200 in a year, and feed was cheap then.  Give me either fat laid back hens or little banties that I don't have to keep penned up.      Donna