Pests on a farm come from all directions. The brush rows, neighboring fields, under ground, in the form of diseases, some even are carried by the wind; and all of these can be a threat to our crops.
This morning Matt and I were out in the fields doing a little work to help with pests that fly in from the sky, I’m talking Canadian geese.
It seems like we we involuntary feed these geese with our crops just about all year round anymore. So when the crop is newly planted and small, it is at its most vulnerable.
You can see the bitten off leaves where the geese have been grazing.
So how do we protect from such a moving target? Well there are basically three ways that we do this on our farm.
- Hunting. Effective but time consuming, and we don’t have the time to be out hunting all of our fields every hour of everyday (a point which can be argued extensively by my hunting husband).
- Hazing. Works well when you happen to be out looking at fields when the geese also happen to be out eating. We use special special shotgun shells to help us with this. But again, it takes a lot of time….and it just impossible to haze all of our acres all the time.
- Eagle Decoys. These guys do have the “time” to just sit in a field and deter geese should they show up.
Here’s a quick video of how we make them out in the field.
Just like that, with a wooden stake, a garbage bag, and some white tape, we have 24 hour security. They aren’t perfect or even pretty, but they are cheap and effective. 
Using these three methods all together on our farm helps us control what is going on out in the field from one pest. Now if only we could get slugs to be scared of eagles too!
NuttyGrass 