We were digging up around the water tank the other day, daughter and grandaughter were here helping me. I was going to plant flowers around it again but we decided to use the space for Tomatoes instead. Of course this area was full of slaters, not too big of a deal with flowers but with a food crop going in they have to be removed. The D. and GD. spent quite a while picking them up out of the dirt. D did go and get the friendly white Aracauna to come and help them. GD thought it was fun to have the chook eat the slaters out of her hand.
We collected heaps and fed them to the chooks.
This is an ideal way to deal with an unwanted pest, very time consuming and fun but not something that I can be bothered with often enough. I am going to try an EO spray and see if that will get the numbers down and as I have found a local supplier of foodgrade DE I will get some of that as well.
I WILL win the war with these things and it WILL be done with minimal unwanted stuff being used.
And, you have happy hens. Maybe you can save on feeding them a handful of food today...lol.
ReplyDeleteDo slaters even eat tomatoes? I looked them up and some sites say they are the same as our sow bug aka roly poly. Then other sites say they are not. I don't even know if a roly poly will eat tomatoes.
Now that I have seen a slater, I don't think they are not roly polys. Do they roll up in a ball when they are frightened? The hens look as though they are having a time of it. They will scratch them out of the soil, too, tilling the soil and fertilizing it all at once. Too bad hens scratch up food plants.
I put the DE in a Kraft Parmesan cheese shaker and use it on the chicken poop to keep down flies, especially when hens poop on the porch as they come to the door wanting me!
Your gd looks as though she is dressed or undressed for very warm weather. Is it really that warm already?