Tag: farm animals

Homestead Pest Control: Using Muscovy Ducks and Other Poultry for Bug Management

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

This summer we have been eaten alive by mosquitoes, we have grasshoppers everywhere, and there are spiders and beetles galore. The bugs on this property are out of control. It makes sense, our property is in the middle of the prairie and we are surrounded by farmland, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I know there are chemical answers out there, but I don’t like the idea of covering our land in insecticides. So, I began searching for natural answers.

First, was our mosquito problem. I have never lived somewhere where we had mosquitoes like this. We do have a small fish pond but that is our only standing water and I still cannot figure out where they are coming from. I swear they live in the grass and they are making outside time miserable. We built a new goat shelter and my husband’s legs got eaten to pieces. I can’t go into my garden to take care of it without having six mosquitoes on each leg every time I turn around. I don’t love being covered in bug spray but at that point, it was our only option. So, a Google search ensued.

Most birds, including chickens, will eat mosquitoes and other pests however, they are not particularly good at it. Bats are great mosquito hunters, but as I mentioned we live on the prairie so that didn’t seem like a good answer. Ducks are better foragers and bug catchers than chickens in general, but not all ducks are as good as others. From my research, it seems that the Muscovy duck is the best duck for pest control. In fact, I believe they were called mosquito assassins and will eat mosquitoes out of the air. This was absolutely perfect for me because Muscovy ducks have been a dream animal of mine for many years. I know a lot of people think they are ugly but I love them. The fact that they gobble bugs is a giant bonus.

Bringing ducklings home

I started to look around online hoping to find adult Moscovy ducks. I did, but all the adults were a minimum of four hours away and I won’t drive that to pick up birds. So instead, I found a local woman who had four Muscovy ducklings. They won’t be gobbling bugs right away but I don’t think it will be too long before they do. If you want Muscovy ducks, I recommend starting with your local Facebook pages. Here, we have a statewide poultry exchange page that is pretty helpful when looking for poultry of any kind.

Before I continue this story let me add that we currently have three baby turkeys about 3-4 weeks old, and a gosling also the same age. They were sharing a brooder and I thought they would be too big to put the babies in with.

We picked the babies up, brought them home, and put them in their own brooder. Later that day we took them out for a little outside time and decided to also bring out the gosling to see what it would do. This gosling, we are now pretty sure is an African Goose, but still do not know the sex. As soon as the gosling saw these babies it went straight over to them, checked them out, and plopped down right next to them. They also ran right over to the gosling cuddled up and wouldn’t leave it. It was the cutest thing and not how I thought that would go at all. So, now our 3-4 week gosling is basically a mother duck. They are in the brooder together and it hovers over them like an anxious momma. Every time we go out to check on them they are all snuggled up together. This gosling was originally purchased as a chicken guardian, but I guess it is now the duck guard.

Muscovy Benefits

Muscovy ducks are not like most ducks, in fact, they are more goose-like than duck. They grow to be large birds that are capable of protecting themselves fairly well. They make good mothers who raise very large clutches of ducklings. This is also why they can become an invasive species, as they reproduce rapidly. If you have a homestead or a farm, Muscovy is said to taste more like steak than duck, and since they are such large birds make great meat options. They also do not quack like a typical duck but make more soft honks or hissing noises. Their water needs are less than your average duck. They do still need water, but they do not hang out in it all day like a mallard duck would. For all these reasons. plus the fact that they forage and eat insects, we decided to bring home Muscovy ducks to our little farm. Hopefully, the next update about the ducks will be a long post on how amazing they are at bug control.

Other options

We have obviously decided to bring Muscovy ducks to our property as I think they are going to be the best option for pest control, but what if you don’t want ducks? Once again, chickens do an ok job at pest control. I have seen ours chase grasshoppers around the yard and eat them, but I read they really only take care of mosquito larvae in water and not mosquitos in the air. The other poultry we have are the Turkey poults. We have recently found out that turkeys LOVE grasshoppers. Right now they are only able to catch and eat the smaller ones, but once they get big the grasshoppers are going to be in trouble. They are even better than the chickens at catching grasshoppers, but I am unsure of their skills with the mosquitoes or the beetles. One of them did eat a spider which for us is extremely helpful. Out on the prairie, we have wolf spiders living in the ground all over and I hate spiders. Wild birds will take care of some bugs for you, but for what we have they do not do enough. Another option would be something like Diatomaceous Earth. It will kill quite a few different varieties of bugs, but it can also take out your good bugs so I would be selective on where I put it. We did put that down first before the ducks came home as the mosquitoes were not bearable. I am very hopeful that when all the birds are big enough to roam around we will not have to use it again. Maybe between the combo of poultry and DE we can survive this summer without losing our minds over the bugs.

First month on the farm

~ wattlesandcombsfarm ~ Leave a comment

Wow! I can’t believe we’ve been on this property for a month now. It’s been an incredibly busy month. I knew moving onto a new property was going to be busy, but I did not know it was going to be this busy. I will take the blame for a lot of the craziness though, because I went ahead and moved full speed with my farm plans. We’ve gotten a lot done, but there is still so much to do. Let’s start with talking about the animals.

Chickens

The first animal we added to the farm was chickens. In fact, if you read any of the earlier posts you would know we got hatching eggs before we even closed on this property. We only ended up with three chicks from that hatch, so of course we stopped by our local feed store and grabbed a few more. When we had been here for about a week I picked up some hens that were already laying. We wanted eggs right away and our chicks weren’t going to start laying for a while. Next thing I know people are asking if we have eggs so of course, I had to get a few more chickens. Currently, we have 10 laying hens all about a year or two old, and 10 chicks. I wanted to focus on just a couple of breeds so I could hatch my own chickens, but like you tend to do we ended up with a barnyard mix. The chickens have pretty much been my favorite addition. They are easy to care for and going out to the coop and bringing in eggs feels very rewarding. Plus they are just plain fun to sit around and watch.

My one complaint about the chickens is they don’t go out into our “pasture” area. I have tried to get them to go out to the 1.5 acres we are calling the pasture but they seem to prefer the backyard or their coop area. I want them to go out into the pasture because we have had a few ticks show up. I cannot stand ticks, they gross me out so much. I was hoping to have the chickens roam the pasture area and eat the ticks, but it looks like I may need to find another solution. I have read about guineas, which I am considering, however I have also heard they are very loud. We may do a chicken tractor in the future so the chickens have to be out in the pasture, but I haven’t made a final decision. However, some form of tick control will need to be decided upon soon. Despite that the chickens have been a very easy and fun addition to the farm.

Dairy Goats

One of my main goals for our farm is to improve the quality of our food. As part of that plan finding a dairy animal was high on my priority list. I have been researching which type we wanted for years now. I would love to have a milk cow, but decided we didn’t have the room. On top of needing more room cows are harder to breed and the vet costs are much higher. Not to mention I don’t really need gallons of milk a day. So once I decided on goats, I started the research process to find the right breed. I really wanted Nubians but I couldn’t find any quality breeders in my local area, and for right now I was unwilling to drive six or more hours to pick up goats. So, instead, I found a good Nigerian Dwarf goat breeder who was only an hour away. I feel pretty lucky to have found her, as she shows her goats. This typically means more care is put into the goats as well as better genetics. We ended up purchasing two does that were already in milk, and two yearling does who have not been bred. I also picked up a buckling and a wether, both were born on April 2nd of this year. It will be a few months until the Buck is old enough to breed, but that gives us time to get used to the does we already have in milk and get our routine down.

Having does in milk has been wonderful but also very challenging. First, the milk is delicious. Nigerian Dwarfs have some of the highest butterfat content which makes their milk creamy and delicious. I won’t lie and say it’s exactly like cow’s milk, but it’s pretty close and maybe even better. The flavor of goat’s milk is very dependent on how you handle it. Other than being really clean, one of the most important factors is how fast you get the milk cooled down. I like to bring the milk into the house, filter it, and then get it into the freezer as soon as possible. I tend to let the milk hang out in the freezer for about an hour to get it cooled down and then I put it in the fridge. There are bacteria in the raw milk that will start to eat the sugars as soon as it is out of the udder. Cooling it down stops the bacteria from eating the sugar as fast and changing the flavor of the milk. Everyone who has tried the milk so far has been really impressed with how good it is. The part that is a little bit goaty is that sometimes there is a tiny bit of an aftertaste. It’s not bad at all and I do not feel like it ruins the milk but it is something to know about if you plan to have goats for milk.

My absolutely favorite thing to do with the milk is turn it into yogurt. I have made goat milk yogurt twice now and it’s the best yogurt I’ve ever had. I am currently a little sad that we have just enough milk to drink because I can’t wait to make more yogurt. We like to make it extra thick almost like a Greek yogurt, but it’s not near as sour as a Greek yogurt can sometimes be. I just top it with some honey and I’m in heaven. I have also made a quick, almost feta-like, cheese. I really enjoyed that as well, and it seems that when the milk is made into other things the goat flavor is completely gone. Not that the flavor is strong to begin with. It’s a very barely there flavor but it disappears completely in homemade goat cheese and yogurt.

Another pro to the Nigerian Dwarf goat breed is their size. I am 5’1″ and the goats come up to about my knee. They are about the size of a medium to large dog. This makes fencing and housing much easier than larger breeds. Also, when bringing them home they rode in the back of the truck. We have a topper on the truck and that’s where they went, no trailer is needed. Their smaller size makes them easy to handle, house, and transport. The con to their size is less milk. I know over time we can work on their udder size and milk capacity, but out of our two does, we are currently getting about four cups of milk each time we milk. This does add up to about half a gallon of milk a day, which sounds like a lot, but when you want to have milk to drink and make cheese/yogurt it isn’t quite enough. We also have two bottle babies still, so if I forget to thaw the frozen milk, almost all of our fresh milk goes to them. They are drinking around a half gallon a day, but they are absolutely adorable so I don’t complain.

All in all, I am very pleased with our goats. I will say one more thing that I learned along the way. If at all possible try and start out with quality stock. You can find cheaper goats from people selling off their backyard farms, but it isn’t always the best option over time. Look for goats that have been bred with milking quality in mind and from someone who has taken very good care of their goats. Starting with registered stock is not required but it may be something to consider. It will make your offspring more valuable since you can register them as well. Like I mentioned I found someone who does 4-H and other goat shows and really tried to focus on quality traits. They are all registered and healthy. They also test their herd every year since they travel and have to make sure they don’t take anything to the shows or pick something up while out. This gave me peace that even though it was more money upfront, we would be better off over the long haul. Plus the woman I bought them from has been very helpful and willing to be more of a mentor. Sometimes what you start out with really does matter.

For milking purposes on a small-scale homestead/farm Nigerian Dwarf goats are a great option. If you are thinking about a dairy animal I would highly suggest looking into these adorable troublemakers.

Challenges

It hasn’t all been fun and games. As I said, I moved pretty quickly when we first closed on the property. Chickens were added right away but we already had a coop and a fenced area so that was no big deal. I did however rush the goats. I had found the goats I wanted and they were ready to go, so I jumped. I don’t think this was the smartest way to do it, but sometimes when you find what you want you have to make it happen. We ended up bringing them home when their fencing wasn’t even finished. They hung out in our backyard while my husband and I finished fencing their pen. We also didn’t have a housing structure, but luckily there was something already here that we ended up using and it worked out great. It’s not perfect and will need some work in the future but it’s been exactly what we needed to get them here and safe right away. Our first night milking was quite a disaster since I also didn’t have a milking stand. We ended up milking them on the deck. We were slow and they were annoyed and it was a total disaster that ended with us all frustrated. A milking stand is expensive and shipping one would have taken time that we didn’t really have, so my husband converted an old bunk bed frame into a milking stand. Sometimes you have to use what you have. It has been serving us well ever since. As you would guess milking is a skill that takes a little while to get down. In the beginning, we took extra bowls out with us. We would milk into one bowl and then dump it into the other every so often, just in case one of the goats decided to step in the milk. Which they did, OFTEN. Even a few weeks in we are still learning. Last night I ended up with a lap full of milk because my daughter, who was helping, moved her hand and the goat thought we were done and kicked the bowl right over. Of course, this time I hadn’t poured it into another bowl so we lost the whole thing. The saying ” no crying over spilled milk”, does not apply here. It is so frustrating to lose all that milk.

The other most challenging part of the goats is keeping them in the fencing. A quick tip, make sure your gate opens inward. Our gate opens out and it gives the goats enough space to try and head-butt their way out of the gate. Quite often we have had to wrangle goats after they all pushed their way out of the pen when we were trying to put one back. You can also throw treats into the pen to distract the other goats while you get the one you wanted for milking. Goats will take advantage of any hole left in fencing or gap left in a gate. They have wormed their way into the chicken area when we cut what we thought was a chicken-sized hole in the fence. We wanted to give the chickens easy access to the pasture, that hole is now closed. Once, we had a goat in the chicken coop. It was so funny. I kept hearing a goat cry but couldn’t find her. It sounded like she was behind the chicken coop, but there was no goat to be found. I thought, “No way she’s in the coop”. She was! She had climbed up the chicken ramp and somehow had knocked the door closed behind her and was stuck inside crying for someone to help. So, if a chicken can fit, so can a goat. Who knew?

Other challenges we can’t do anything about. Where we live the wind is absolutely insane. It’s no fun trying to milk goats when the doors to the shed are rattling on their hinges and you feel like you are going to blow away walking them back to the pen. That is unfortunately something we will have to get used to. I do believe the animals will get easier as we get more experience, but the weather is something we will just have to suck it up and deal with.

This last month has been wonderful and I am so happy that we have been able to make this dream happen. I have loved adding the chickens and the goats and I can’t wait for garden season to start. However, even a month in I can tell you it’s not like what you see on the internet. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to be a lot of work. I always to try and keep my why in mind. Why is this what I wanted? What do I hope to accomplish? It helps me when things get hard, to remember why I started all this in the first place. To remember my goals. To remember that this is what I have dreamed about for years. I am now living in it and I don’t want to forget that and ever become ungrateful. There have been hard days and I know there will be more, but I hope to never look at this with less than thankful eyes, challenges and all.