Talking turkey: ‘Crazy idea’ rids farm of armyworms
Armyworms are no match for a flock of hungry turkeys.
The worms, which are semi-tropical and normally live in southern climes, have been destroying lawns and ruining crops throughout the Buckeye state for the past several weeks. When a farmer in southern Tuscarawas County discovered the bugs on his property recently, he came up with a novel approach to stop the invaders without using chemicals.
Kyle Henry and his wife, Kristen, own a 400-acre farm in Rush Township, about 6 miles south of Uhrichsville. The farm has been in the family for generations. The Henrys run 600 head of cattle on the property, where the animals graze on the lush green pastures along Crooked Creek, which runs through the farm.
How farmer’s idea worked
About two and a half weeks ago, Kyle noticed a brown spot in one of the pastures. He didn’t give it much thought, because the cattle will often muddy it up.
“A couple of days later, it was about four times the size,” he said. “Then a couple of days later two acres were gone. The next day five acres were gone.”
He had received information on armyworms from the state, and he soon discovered that the bugs were everywhere in the pasture.
“I didn’t really want to spray anything,” Henry said. “My dad’s farmed here for a long time, and he mostly likely got Parkinson’s from spray that he used back in the day. Sometimes, you have to use the spray, but I wanted to try to find another way.”
So he came up with what he called “a crazy idea.”
A friend put him in touch with Joey Ellwood, co-owner of EDS Ranch, a farm-to-table operation in Gnadenhutten. Henry had heard that Ellwood had lots of turkeys on hand.
“I told Joey, I’ve got a crazy idea, and he was on board,” Henry said.
How turkeys saved his farm
A few days later, Ellwood brought out 90 turkeys to the farm, which, appropriately enough, is located on Turkey Flat Road. The birds were let loose in the pasture. Henry ran some of his cattle with them to provide some protection from predators.
The turkeys took it from there. The ground in the pasture is dotted
with tiny holes where the turkeys pecked at it to get at the worms, which are apparently very tasty to turkeys. Before long, the birds were joined by large numbers of starlings, which didn’t want to miss out on a great meal opportunity.
Within days, the armyworms were gone, and the turkeys were a lot fatter.
When an agronomist came out to visit the farm, he only found two worms, Henry said.
The only drawback was that the starlings would land on the power line leading to the Henrys’ farm while they waited to go into the field. On Wednesday, one of the starlings got into a transformer and blew out the power for a short time.
Ellwood’s partner, Matt Schaar, describes the operation as “Pasture 911.”
How the ‘crazy idea’ could expand
The two owners of EDS ranch had been developing the idea of using poultry to rehabilitate pastures that had either been under-grazed or over-grazed.
“We wanted to run large-scale rotational grazing with poultry in order to naturally fertilize these pastures,” Schaar said. “But we had never heard of armyworms until lately. But this was the perfect opportunity to launch Pasture 911 and come out and help Kyle down here at his place. It sounds like it was a great success.
“When Joey said Kyle’s got a crazy idea, I said, we love crazy ideas. Let’s do this. I care what happens. Let’s get them out in the field and do some data collection to see if this is going to work.
“So when I met up with Kyle and he said the agronomist found two worms and as fast as he picked them up the birds ate them out of his hand, I said, it sounds like we’re on to something here. So Pasture 911 might get a little more traction than we thought.”
Because of the chance meeting between Henry and the owners of EDS Ranch, his grass-fed beef will go on sale at the store EDS Ranch will be opening Sept. 18.
Henry is hopeful that the pasture will be back to normal by next spring.
As for the turkeys, they are destined to end up on somebody’s dinner plate this Thanksgiving — a little bit fatter because of a diet of armyworms.