grasshoppers...UGH!

[eggrookie2010]

Anyone ever had a bad grasshopper issue? They are destroying my garden. Im paying my kids 10 cents for each one they kill...then I feed them to the chickens. Fly swatters is about all I have at this point. Anyone?

 

[Shiloh Acres]

We are having a literal plague of grasshoppers. I thought they were bad last year (and they were) but this year ...

I can walk across the yard, and so many hop up that it feels like it is raining grasshoppers. You can't walk anywhere without them hitting you all over. I honestly don't know how I'm managing to go outside cuz they give me the willies to touch them. And a big one hit me in the neck yesterday and it actually hurt!

Last year I got guinea keets and turned them into the garden. They did a good job, and actually saved my garden. I was the only one on my road whose garden survived.

This year I got ducklings. I'm over the guineas screeching, bothering the neighbors, and now becoming attack-aggressive. I'm keeping the calmed one to live in the chicken yard to tell me when cats come and the other remaining two are being prepared for the stewpot.

The ducklings are young, but avid grasshopper hunters. I think muscovies and runners are doing the best. It's a toss-up whether they will grow fast enough enough to keep up with the biggest of the grasshoppers (they struggle to eat them) but I'm hoping the ducks will win. It's too late for my onions, but tomatoes and peppers are doing ok, and I might even get the potatoes back before they are destroyed.

I take the ducklings (16 of them) into the garden several times a day. They work better if I have not just watered it. I use a soaker hose that creates puddles, and they just play in the mud if it's already wet.

Good luck -- I hope you find something that works for you!

 

[eggrookie2010]

S*I*G*H I had a feeling ....they are even getting in the house. My sprouting beans barely get leaves poked out before they become grasshopper dinner. I am trying so hard to feed the family with a big garden rather than just a fun hobby and Im feeling discouraged. This is also the first growing season we have been in this country house so everything from weather to pests is new to me. I have 4 kinds of squash, 4 kinds of tomatoes, 4 kinds of melon, egg plant, peppers, 3 kinds of beans, 2 type of pumpkin, cucumber, 3 berry bushes and 10 new fruit/nut trees. My heart will break if I lose this garden. Everything looks pretty good from a distance right now except the beans...but up close you can see major damage to the leaves of everything else.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

Yup, mine are getting in the house too, here and there.

Can you let the chickens in? Or will they destroy your garden? I don't really trust chckens there, which is why I used keets/ducklings. But I call the chickens into the backyard to chase them, and I'd say after a week of doing that they are down by 80% back there. It's not just a time issue either ... My ducklings keep wandering toward the neighbor's backyard and when I go to ge them, he still has more grasshoppers in his backyard than I had before.

Maybe your larger plants can recover? My potatoes are trying to come back. I also have fig, grape, and blackberry that were damaged by the drought and wind that I'm babying a lot more, and they are trying to come back too.

I hope you can save your garden. I know what you mean ... It's kind of heartbreaking to me to lose either food crops or animals!

 

[eggrookie2010]

I do NOT trust the chickens. I have just started letting them free range for a few hours before dark ( I have to lock up the dogs) and they trashed my petunias...my garden is ony 20 yards from the coop so I kinda hang out but the garden and shoo them back the other way if they get any big ideas. I have 12 birds...and LOVE them. So fun for me. This is my first batch (which is why there are only 12 LMBO!) I will have eggs very soon. The neighbor has guineas and I dont mind the noise cause they keep the snakes down in the pasture BUT I have a Lab thats happy to kill them. So I cant really have loose birds. She got one of the neighbors last fall. I felt sick about it and when we see her birds working our pasture we are quick to lock the dogs in the house. Do you have kids? I have a 3 yr old and a 5 yr old...I wonder if the guineas would tolerate them or jump on em? I also have hawks and owls nesting in the barnyard so keats are in trouble here..
here is a photo of my sad garden this morning.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

I would take the keets out and supervise them, not leave them alone. They seemed happy to stay in the cover of the garden and not venture across short grass, so they were safer. I keep my baby birds in a pen with hawk netting over the top otherwise, and lock them up a night.

I wish mine would kill snakes. Thats why I chose guineas, but mine were and remain clueless about snakes. A copperhead got in their pen recently and they were oblivious.

I don't think most guineas become aggressive to people. Mine were maybe weird. They tossed out the lowest-ranking guinea (one after another) and spent their days literally screeching their heads off. I appreciate the alarm calls when something is there, and can tolerate a number of false alarms a day. But my guineas ... Were just crazy. They would never eat feed either. The low-ranking ones have been normal, but I have slaughtered some of them because they get booted out and then are miserable. The last one acts as though she doesn't mind being on her own. When they kicked her out, they turned on me. Mine are all female, btw. They literally ran at me, leaped on me, tried to claw me, and bit and twisted with their beaks. They can do some damage! And I was afraid since they escape so often they might hurt someone else, so that was the last straw. They are in lockdown in fattening pens (usually I use very short-term for roosters) until I can slaughter them.

And on second thought, chickens in the garden are probably a bad idea. My guinea keets got a taste for greenery after the garden shut down last year, so they were not suited for it thus year either. But I've had better success with ducks/ducklings in the past, so I'm hoping to make it through with them this year. Next year I will probably fence off the garden and let them range outside the fence, and see if that works.

 

[Dawn419]

We're "blessed" with a huge population of grasshoppers here, also.

Last year was my fist year gardening on our new place and it was depressing since we didn't get to eat much out of it because of the grasshoppers, aphids, flea beetles, squash bugs, etc. We carved our garden plot out of the woods and it was mainly a buffet for all the bugs that had been living here with no human habitation.

We let our chickens and guineas free range but have them fenced out of the garden for the most part, I did try letting them in over the winter but they spent more time scratching the soil out of the raised beds than eating bugs so they've been banned.

This year, I have a pair of Carolina Wrens nesting in a gourd birdhouse hanging down at the garden and we've recently been "adopted by a pair of Summer Tanagers and those to pair of birds have been staying busy in the garden and I'm not seeing near as many big 'hoppers.

Back when we lived in TN, we had a huge Orchid collection and they were a favorite grasshopper treat. We kept Neem Oil on hand and used that religiously on the orchids and the hoppers quit eating on them. We're wanting to start using Neem here but haven't been able to find it locally.


Dawn

 

[MetalSmitten]

i've seen this idea before but not done it myself: make a chicken moat surround your garden area with double fencing (netted or just really tall), to make a run encircling the garden. you can either leave an opening in the run for garden entry, or i've seen some clever ways of making a people door that let the chickens still run the entire way around. the point though is that most bugs have to cross through chicken territory before reaching the garden, but the chickens themselves can't actually get in your garden. it's not 100% foolproof, and night time is pretty much still unguarded, but every little bit helps.

 

[Marianne]

I know the feeling. The first year we had chickens and I let them free range, there were so many grasshoppers that the hens just stood there like bobbleheads, watching the millions of grasshoppers jump everywhere.
This year I saw a bunch of baby grasshoppers in the garden, so grabbed the soapy water and started spraying (1 to 1-1/2 tsp dish soap in 1 qt. of water, add a few drops of any cooking oil and shake before using). That helps to keep the bugs from totally destroying the plants.

The past few days I have directed the new hens into the garden and yesterday there were a lot less grasshoppers in there. I mulch heavily with straw, so they do a lot of digging and scratching, but usually don't tear up mature plants. They have scratched up a couple new potatoes and ate a bunch of beet tops, though.

I've noticed that we have less bugs since I let my first batch of hens (all 8 of 'em) free range a lot the past couple years. They find insect eggs, etc. Last winter we were down to 2 hens, so they sure didn't do much. Now we're up to 12, so I hope they gain some ground!

And for sure, some things have to fenced off, like my dinky strawberry patch or anything newly planted. My garden is fenced, so even if they can't get in there, they're still getting bugs that would hop in the garden eventually.

The soapy water didn't do anything for my variety of squash bugs, other than give them a bath. You can also add Tobasco sauce, garlic juice and peppermint to the mix, but I haven't tried it. Last year I saw Neem at Lowe's, but I haven't been there this year to see if they still have it. I have more trouble w/ squash bugs now than anything. :/

 

[eggrookie2010]

I was in Tractor Supply 2 days ago to get fly traps and saw like a gallon jug of that stuff - Neem oil- and my husband has some in the tac room. How do you use it? Mix with water and spray? What is the mixture ratio? Do I coat entire plant including fruit?