Toxic chemicals?

[mominoz]

Ok, I try not to use chemicals if I can find an alternative, but sometimes they are my last resort.
SO, I have plants and fruit trees and stuff around the yard and I plan to let my futtute geese and runner ducks graze...
I have fenced my garden off and fruit trees have a cage around them. But I do use mothballs around some plants to keep the deer from eating everything, I also sometimes use garlic, dried egg spray on stuff. Sometimes I use DE, and on rare occasions I dust the dog yard with flea dust.(Frontline didn't work last year and 2 of our dogs are allergic to fleas, had to change to Advantage)
I also use a Fire Ant bait on mounds , which I am trying to get rid of before the geese , ducks are grown and out for grazing. Sometimes I use the FireAnt dust, that they track in the mound and it is supposed to kill them, it works fairly well too.

 

[Judy]

I'm in much the same place. You may be able to find something less toxic than mothballs for the deer if you research (have you tried bars of Irish Spring in pantyhose?) I have been using a mint spray to deter deer, and have not had a problem, but that may be because the deer have so much else to eat around here; I see deer tracks but no damage so far. I put the nasty stuff on my fire ant mounds as I fear they would come in the house if I did not; I get mounds all over the yard. My hens free range. They seem to stay away from the poisoned fire ant mounds; at any rate, I have not lost a chicken to any sort of poisoning as far as I know.

It's not easy to find a balance. We do what we have to do.