Thursday, October 30, 2008

Chickens and frogs

Recently visited a gentleman that has successfully ended his neighborhood's infestation of coqui's using chickens. It took him several years to accomplish and keeping upbeat as he was called "crazy" by some...now those same people come knocking asking for some chickens to clean their area. It was so peaceful in his front yard with a dog bark in the distance, crickets here and there
kids laughing....and no loud chirping of the coqui.
Others have reported success to me but they really hadn't done the "chicken wrangling" that was done by Mr. W. His method is to take a small handful of feed and attract the chickens to the area he's heard the frog calling, his flock then stays there until they are moved to the next area; are completely free ranging and roost in the trees. He's seen them scratch up a bunch of immature frogs and eat them all which stops the 8 month bloom that happens normally.
I haven't confirmed the exact breed of chickens but was told it's the common "hawaiian" chicken,with only 1 rooster to keep the flock replenished and the crowing down.
The other benefit is the fresh eggs he gets every morning from his 15 or so hens....hats off to you Mr. W and hope more of you readers will give this a try.
You may want to look at this site which describes Exotic Newcastle's Disease.
http://www.avianbiotech.com/diseases/newcastle.htm
Mahalo, Kokee

2 comments:

Unknown said...

that is the only solution that will work and not harm the environment, spraying everything from citric acid to baking soda can only be done so long before we start killing more than just coquis (which we already are doing) ... we have 2 chickens wandering our yard.

KooKee said...

Chickens are another tool but doesn't mean that they will work everywhere, and not have some unforseen consequence. Relying on any one thing is just setting yourself up for a disaster. Lookup
Newcastle disease.