This year with spring arriving about a month early we’ve wondered if the population of ticks sneaking around our yard are silently exploding, those creepy little killers. Sure enough just a few days ago, Anita pulled a full-bellied deer tick off Blackberry’s ear. (He is Honeysuckle’s remaining son, a messy teenage boy, finally ready to leave next week for his new home as a surprise birthday gift to a seven-year-old.)
Just today the Huffington Post published a warning I take to heart. It is enough for any situational hypochondriac to repeatedly Google Lyme disease and be certain you’ve had it at least twenty times in the past year. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/global-warming-lyme-disease-west-nile_n_1400692.html?ref=email_share
You can’t be smugly indifferent just because you don’t live in the forest. No. Even we urban dwellers are targets for lyme disease and other tick borne plagues. (If you don’t believe me just go ahead and Google ticks.) I hope the following helps you: it turns out that guinea fowl love ticks! Some reports claim a single hen can clear a two acre area clean of any tick that dares crawl through her territory. But you can’t think in “ones.” These animals thrive as flocks, in communities, not as singles. So if you take my advice get at least two. Three. Perhaps ten. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/global-warming-lyme-disease-west-nile_n_1400692.html?ref=email_share
We would love to own guinea fowl, but I doubt our neighbors would tolerate them. Maybe we couldn’t either, when it gets down to it. They have one tiny little unfavorable characteristic.
We have grandchildren who live on ten wooded acres surrounded by hundreds more, who lie on the ground and play in the dirt.... Perhaps it is our duty to protect them from tick-borne illness? Perhaps we should gift them with a little flock. Perhaps Guinea fowl cries could be considered musical if you thought of them as tick-eaters rather than something that makes you scream SHUT-UP OR I WILL KILL YOU THIS INSTANT.
What do you think, Micah? Jerem?
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9 comments:
When we lived in the country my kids would always get ticks as soon as they wandered past the territory where the chickens pecked! Always. Actually I never found ticks on the kids within the territory. Those birds sure cleaned up!
Thank you for the information, the pointer, and the hearty laugh.
I wonder; are guinea fowl good gardeners? From the looks of the picture we need help in that area.
Jerem wonders; are guinea fowl good to eat?
I guess if both those can be answered yes, we'll take ten.
p.s. ya shur, we check our children nightly for ticks. One can never be too careful ya know?
Micah, why is Jerem posting as you? Tell him I knew he was a good father and a nightly tick-check puts him right up there.
As to your questions: If eating pests counts, yes, they garden. Whether eating them is possible, I believe it is - as any fowl. But then your help would diminish. I'd love it if you had guinea fowl. They'd need some kind of shed or shelter, though, I guess.
Ticks make my skin crawl. I have a friend who raised guinea hens. On a road trip from their place a few guys decided to bring a few home. They spent the night with them in their hotel room. They regretted their decision by morning : )Found you via Womanneversleeps
Okay, way funny. My neighbor had a small flock when I was a child. It was a challenge to sneak up to their house, thru buildings, pastures, etc., without setting of the guinea's! The sound brought it all back, oh my! Guinea's vs. ticks......well, I would always have to go GUINEA!
Jody, that's pretty hilarious.
Klerrssm, I wonder. They must be like geese who set off alarms like that.
Sember sends a comment:
"When we lived in the country my kids would always get ticks as soon as they wandered past the territory where the chickens pecked! Always. Actually I never found ticks on the kids within the territory. Those birds sure cleaned up!"
I think that's pretty amazing. I wish we could live in a little country haven with as many fowl, rabbits and gardens as we could stand. Oh. And not have noxious weeds, gophers, or unwanted predators. My fantasy...
Their cry sounds like an insistent 5-year old ; -} If we had ticks, I'd have them.
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