How to deal with locust plague? Are chickens useless?

Locusts, also known as grasshoppers, are a very common farmland pest. Once they reproduce too much, they will cause a devastating blow to crops, and all the hard work of the year will be in vain, so we must do a good job of prevention and control. Chickens can eat insects like grasshoppers, so is it useless to release chickens when there is a locust plague?

How to deal with locust plagues

Locusts are extremely destructive pests to crops. If a locust plague occurs in a farmland, it is necessary to kill them as soon as possible by spraying them with pesticides. If there are winter conditions, drones can be used to spray and kill them. This is the most direct and effective method.

There are many ways to deal with locusts in farmland, mainly including agricultural control (ecological control), biological control, and chemical control. The goal of these control methods is to eliminate locusts and prevent them from harming crops.

We should try our best to take timely action to eliminate locusts before a large-scale locust outbreak occurs, or when the outbreak is at a low level and has not yet caused damage to crops.

Is the locust plague chicken useless?

Chickens are omnivores. They eat grass, vegetables, and grains. They eat almost all insects, including locusts. Locusts are called grasshoppers here, and chickens eat grasshoppers.

However, we have a misunderstanding that we can control locust plagues by raising chickens. In fact, this is not the case. Chickens are domesticated fixed animals, while locusts are wild migratory animals. Chickens are perennial animals, while locusts are annual animals.

If there are locusts within a hundred acres of farmland around a chicken farm, the chicken flock can be controlled, but if the area exceeds a hundred acres, the locusts will still become a disaster because locusts are migratory animals. When they have eaten up the crops in one area, they will fly to that field. The locusts are overwhelming and dark. Sometimes the sun cannot be seen in the sky, but in less than half a day, they have swept through the crops and moved away. When they come, they are a black mass, but they disappear in an instant.

To raise free-range chickens, you need a place. Once there are chickens on the land, there will be no crops. The chickens will eat as many tender leaves of crops and grass as they grow. Without food to provide for locusts, there will be no large number of locusts on the land you own. There will only be bare land. That means the chickens will eat the crop seedlings more cleanly than the locusts.

How to prevent locust plagues

The conventional operations for controlling locusts are as follows:

1. Protect and utilize the natural enemies of locusts, such as spiders, frogs, lizards, birds, predatory beetles, parasitic bees, parasitic flies, etc.

2. Reclaim land and plant crops to change the locust's habitat and reduce the possibility of occurrence.

3. In locust-affected areas, use highly effective and low-toxic agricultural and biological pesticides.

4. Reducing the locusts’ food source can prevent and control locusts.

5. Reducing the locusts' living areas will also help prevent and control them better.

Related News

The United Nations calls for attention to the locust plague. The beginning of 2020 is not peaceful for the whole world

On February 10, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations called on countries to increase assistance to countries threatened by locusts. The organization said it had raised US$21 million in aid, but there was still a large gap with the required US$76 million.

FAO officials said that the number of locusts has increased 64 million times in a year and a half. These locusts are unprecedentedly destructive and have caused food shortages in many areas.