One of the things that has bothered me ever since we moved down here is how many ticks there seem to be. Almost every time my family spends more than a couple of minutes outdoors, they seem to be coming inside and finding a tick or two trying to make itself at home. I’ve never been very good at removing ticks, it seems that even though I try really hard to remove them correctly the head seems to stay in the bite and then there is a swelling around the bite that takes a very long time to fade away.
The folks on the Yahoo groups that I belong to are frequently writing about how they keep a small flock of backyard chickens to help keep the ticks at bay. In addition they say that they enjoy all of the fresh eggs that they could possibly want. From time to time they offer up some chickens for sale and my hubby and I discuss the ins and outs of owning chickens. My biggest concerns involve predators and who would care for them if we went on vacation. I really don’t think we just dump a bunch of chicken feed in a trough and leave them for a week.