How did they find that out and know how many the scovies ate? We had scovies for
4 or 5 years and I never noticed any diminishment of the mosquitoes on our
place. They mostly ate duck weed out of my pond and grasses and weeds out of the
pasture, not to mention the veggies they ate. They also flew like wild ducks but
were very ungainly on landing and are as ugly as sin, not to mention noisy. The
drakes can be very aggressive, chasing dogs, cats, small children, etc. They
only chased me once and they were in the pot for dinner.
George
Julie wrote:
Yikes, had a lot of messages to catch up on. Been busy playing piano
(it's been a while) and teaching kids, who took to it surprisingly well,
and surprisingly avidly (grammar?)
Good to know, George. DH has expressed interest in Muscovy ducks, (for
country living, not here :-) )because they pretty well eradicate
mosquitoes, a bane in this area. I'll have to advise him of the side
effects. :-)
Apparently it has been proven by tests done by University of Guelph,
(which many claim is now supported by chemical companies because they
have lost a lot of funding from the government), that muscovies
eliminated more mosquitoes than a brand name insecticide.
--
Julie
Barrie, Ontario
Zone 5
George Shirley wrote:
This was several years ago, can't remember the details. It was in a
controlled environment. They had an apparatus set up that sprayed
insecticide at intervals in one of the controls. I did find another
study done, also by the U of G, but the insect was the housefly in this
case (under the heading Recent Technical Papers).
http://www.food-insects.com/id41.htm
I assume the study for the mosquitoes was similar. Seems the bottom
line is, when duckweed and veggies are available, why bother with
insects. :-)
--
Julie
Barrie, Ontario
Zone 5
George Shirley wrote:
