If you have a backyard, or homestead and you are troubled by unwanted bugs around your garden, animals and humans, and if you are reluctant to spray pesticides, poultry might be the answer for you.

Poultry are easy to care for, provide delicious eggs, and their droppings add excellent nutrients to your compost pile. They are also entertaining to watch.

Another advantage of poultry is that they do an outstanding job controlling ticks, mosquitos and other pests.

In the June/July 2009 issue of MotherEarthNews, the editors collected many stories on how chickens, ducks and guineas help to decrease the number of bugs around peoples yards.

Chickens are the most common poultry people raise in their backyard. They eat almost everything that moves: ticks, fly larvae, grasshoppers, scorpions, centipedes, blackwidow spiders, crickets, and even small snakes.

Ducks not only manage pond pests, they are also tireless consumers of slugs, snails, beetles, and grasshoppers. They are great at controlling mosquitoes, snakes, wasps, termites and hornets.

Guineas are good pest controllers too. They are a good addition to your flock. They are more alert and often warn ranging chickens of overhead predators. They won’t disturb your vegetables when you put them in your garden.

For more amazing and amusing stories on poultry pest control, go to www.MotherEarthNews.com/eggs/pestpatrol.aspx

Also see “Organic Pest Control (2) — Beneficial Insects”.