We have kept chickens since the second year that we owned our farm. We had dogs when we moved here, but we had never had to use flea or tick repellents because they never came home with them.. Our farm had been uninhabited for a while and our dogs would wander out into the overgrown areas and return just dripping with ticks. It was terrible.
Since we did not want to use so much of the toxic chemicals required to kill ticks on our dogs, and having already treated one of them for Lyme Disease, we began to look for alternative ways to deal with them.
We discovered that there were several avian options. Many farmers use guinea hens for this reason but they can be very noisy. Wild turkeys were an option, but with a significant fox population, we did not know if they would survive on their own. We chose chickens, since they also would provide us with eggs and meat.
We have a wealth of buildings on this farm but all were in great need of rehabilitation. We took a small building containing an old cement tub which was used many years ago to cool the fresh milk. We fixed the roof, put no-maintenance siding on it and built nest boxes and roosts.
We bought our first chickens the next year, 34 of them. Within a few months, we were eating our own eggs from these free-range chickens and our tick population was almost gone. We have a local butcher prepare the meat chickens that we raise several times a year, for which he only charges us $1.50. I am very glad not to have to learn to butcher them myself!
The only down side of having these chickens is the damage they can do to gardens. I have found that they will leave many decorative plants alone, except for tender flowering plants like Impatiens. All vegetable and herbs must be fenced but this protects them from rabbits and other critters as well.
Many farmers keep chickens because they will eat fly eggs out of the manure and decrease the fly population. I have chosen not to allow them inside alpaca areas in order to protect the alpaca fiber from chicken droppings. Even if you choose to fence them into a confined area, they still earn their keep and we would recommend them to any alpaca farmer.
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