It is November, but the weather outside suggests early October, without the drenching heat waves that come occasionally until they just don't, any more.
I was trying to assess what we do here. Naturally, unnaturally, whatever works. I suppose you could say we are a combination of many different philosophies regarding pets, pests and animals.
We give our animals whatever the vet says is optimal for them, looking online for information on what the best worming medicine is or how to treat pink eye, etc.
But then there are things like bugs inside the house - we use a combination powder/de pesticide that circles the house and we do not use this on the inside. This keeps the bugs out and hopefully because there are no bugs getting in, the bugs that are already here and feed on incoming bugs will either leave or die of hunger. Cross fingers, here.
Then there's the fly problem in the barn. We've tried everything and we started naturally, first, using a spearmint/eucalyptus spray on the backs of the goats and anywhere we don't want the little buggers. We have two kinds of flies (probably more) - the barn flies that rest on the goats' backs and the regular houseflies.
The goats would need to each be sprayed down multiple times a week - time we don't have, so mike bought a pyrethrin-based spray concentrate that works for days and weeks, I hope. But we still use the spearmint/eucalyptus spray for other parts that aren't as critical.
We also blast the barn with DE (diatomaceous earth) once in a while and since Mike is cleaning out the barn today (and yesterday), we will be putting that down after the barn lime makes the barn 'sweet' again.
We use DE and throw it in with the chick feed and the hen mixture. It is generally known that DE could kill the pests INSIDE the chickens, but we are still skeptical.
It didn't work on the goats.
We use non-chemical stuff inside, as well. I make my own toothpaste, laundry soap, dishwasher detergent and basic hard soap. Some of this gets put into spray bottles to clean up areas, but generally, we still use 409 or Windex.
I use the soap I make for my hair (and so does Mike) and use a cream rinse. I will be attempting to make the cream rinse soon, as well. I make toothpaste, but that's still in the beginning stage of experimentation. I made Mike some licorice-flavored toothpaste (because he jokingly said he wanted it one day) and that wasn't great. Then I made raspberry. Still receiving mixed reviews. The recipe is not as 'pasty' as I'd like it, so I'm going to play around with it a little more to see if I can't come up with a real winner that we both don't mind using. And it won't have ANY sort of MINT in it.
It's Turkey day. Have a great one.
I was trying to assess what we do here. Naturally, unnaturally, whatever works. I suppose you could say we are a combination of many different philosophies regarding pets, pests and animals.
We give our animals whatever the vet says is optimal for them, looking online for information on what the best worming medicine is or how to treat pink eye, etc.
But then there are things like bugs inside the house - we use a combination powder/de pesticide that circles the house and we do not use this on the inside. This keeps the bugs out and hopefully because there are no bugs getting in, the bugs that are already here and feed on incoming bugs will either leave or die of hunger. Cross fingers, here.
Then there's the fly problem in the barn. We've tried everything and we started naturally, first, using a spearmint/eucalyptus spray on the backs of the goats and anywhere we don't want the little buggers. We have two kinds of flies (probably more) - the barn flies that rest on the goats' backs and the regular houseflies.
The goats would need to each be sprayed down multiple times a week - time we don't have, so mike bought a pyrethrin-based spray concentrate that works for days and weeks, I hope. But we still use the spearmint/eucalyptus spray for other parts that aren't as critical.
We also blast the barn with DE (diatomaceous earth) once in a while and since Mike is cleaning out the barn today (and yesterday), we will be putting that down after the barn lime makes the barn 'sweet' again.
We use DE and throw it in with the chick feed and the hen mixture. It is generally known that DE could kill the pests INSIDE the chickens, but we are still skeptical.
It didn't work on the goats.
We use non-chemical stuff inside, as well. I make my own toothpaste, laundry soap, dishwasher detergent and basic hard soap. Some of this gets put into spray bottles to clean up areas, but generally, we still use 409 or Windex.
I use the soap I make for my hair (and so does Mike) and use a cream rinse. I will be attempting to make the cream rinse soon, as well. I make toothpaste, but that's still in the beginning stage of experimentation. I made Mike some licorice-flavored toothpaste (because he jokingly said he wanted it one day) and that wasn't great. Then I made raspberry. Still receiving mixed reviews. The recipe is not as 'pasty' as I'd like it, so I'm going to play around with it a little more to see if I can't come up with a real winner that we both don't mind using. And it won't have ANY sort of MINT in it.
It's Turkey day. Have a great one.
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