Natural spider repellent that works in any climate or location very effectively without any chemicals or traps to keep your family safe all year long.
My husband’s and my property overlooks a scenic and peaceful fishing lake. While we love the view and the calm of living in our semi-rural neighborhood, we don’t love the spiders such an environment naturally seems to attract.
Warm, moist surroundings with lots of trees are particularly inviting to spiders of all sizes. No matter what we did as a spider repellent tactic, these critters seemed to find a way to get into the house especially during the summer rainy season.
Nothing seems to work to eliminate them once they’re in the house either. This includes the old stand-by borax that works so well for getting rid of ants and roaches.
The news story about the couple who had to move out of their upscale, Missouri house due to a horrible infestation with venomous brown recluse spiders despite repeated treatment from conventional pest control companies is a testament to just how difficult spiders can be to deal with.
After 22 years of living in our home, I had long since resigned myself to being Chief Spider Catcher. I thought it was a title I was just going to have to accept. Fortunately, we didn’t have spider repellent problems with the brown recluse or other dangerous species.
At least I’m not afraid of spiders. Taking out the big, fast ones was annoying, but thankfully not a scary task.
When you have young children, however, spiders are much more than annoying. They can be dangerous and there are plenty of spiders that pack a nasty and even venomous bite. If a person is immuno-compromised, a spider bite is especially problematic.
In our neck of the woods, the wolf spider is the one that most concerns me. Those things are big, hairy, fast, and not shy about biting you if provoked.
I remember vividly the time my husband put his bare feet into his work shoes that had been left sitting on the front porch only to find an enormous wolf spider hiding inside that gave him the most painful bite he has ever experienced (it was the only time in our almost 24 years of marriage that I ever heard him swear over literally anything!).
Clearly, even if spiders don’t get loose in the home, they can be a danger outside if they are nesting on the porch, in the garage, or in trees close by.
Natural Spider Repellent – Guaranteed!
I recently noticed that for the past 6 months, not a single spider had gotten into the house. I hadn’t seen any spiders in the garage or on the porch either. In fact, I hadn’t seen a single spider anywhere.
This despite a particularly wet summer with rains that filled every single retention pond around our township to the very brim.
What had so dramatically changed?
I got my answer at the Wise Traditions Conference in Indianapolis. After one session, I had the privilege of talking with Pat Foreman, a well-known radio personality known as The Chicken Whisperer. Pat is the author of City Chicks: Keeping Micro-Flocks of Chickens as Garden Helpers, Compost Makers, Bio-Recyclers, and Local Food Producers.
I was talking to Pat about a number of issues related to caring for backyard chickens. Our family acquired a mobile coop with 3 hens last spring.
As I was chatting with her, I realized that our chickens were our spider repellent secret weapon and the reason they’ve been a complete no show on our property for months!
Pat confirmed that chickens do indeed enjoy a meal that includes a nice juicy spider. They also like to eat any other insects they might find pecking and scratching around the property where they are allowed to free-range.
Chickens Love to Eat Spiders and Other Insects
At that moment, I realized that our chickens were also the reason why I hadn’t had to knock down any wasp nests in many months. Our kids even witnessed a down and dirty fight between two of our layers over a very large wasp.
Chickens are a natural insect repellent no matter what type of bugs enjoy hanging out and bothering you throughout the year! Â Yes, even including mosquitoes and ticks! I’ve seen my chickens eating mosquito larvae out of a bucket filled with water before!
Do you have a spider problem like we did for so many years? If so, a couple of chickens can provide your family with fresh, nutritious eggs and also keep your children safe and your property free from these pesky and dangerous creatures.
Concerned that keeping chickens in the city wouldn’t be allowed due to zoning ordinances? Check out City Chicks which has the inside scoop on how to effectively get laying hens permitted within your town or city. In my county, I was surprised to learn that any property owner is permitted to have laying hens (not roosters) no matter what the neighborhood!
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I had 4 chickens last summer cause I wanted , Organic soy free, free range eggs.
What I got was a mess.
They ate All my vegetables the first time I let them out of the chicken coop.
They pooped all over my walkways, and gravel where we walk etc.
They never bothered eating spiders, or ticks.
Although they where cute to watch!
I live in the mountains in California, on a few acres and we get rattle snakes here.
When I had Guinea hens they ate the ticks and kept the Rattle snakes away (killed them)
Also, the best watch dogs you would ever want.
The Guinea’s where only in a coop for about 3 weeks to let them know this is there property and stay on it. When I let them out, they where totally free range.
We would throw there food out a few times a day when we saw them. I live on a river so I did not put out water for them.
They seemed to lay there eggs, and had there babies in the wild rose bushes by our small pond.
After about 12 yrs , My problem with them was, they started to attract Bob Cats here that ate them.
The huge Bob cat was not scared of anyone ..It also started coming up to my house in the early afternoon.
It even grabbed one of the Guinea’s in the afternoon against my living-room sliding door, and when I opened one of my doors it sat 3 feet away and didn’t move, just looked at me, till I took out a gun and shot it off to scare it way.
Then walked slowly off.
I take my long handle brush out every week in the summer time , get under my eves, and take the spider webs down with there eggs. Then smash them.
In my house I vacuum spiders up, or smash them.
Spiders webs only attract those little bugs. If you keep the webs down, you do not have a mess.
If you put Bay leafs in your pantry, and in your flour etc. that takes care of the weevils.
I personally will not live in a house with spider webs and spiders ..Spider webs are dirty, and collect dust, and dirt.
I have grand babies crawling around, that is the last thing I want on them, or my floors. NO Spiders.
Lizards & Praying mantis also eat the spiders outside and bugs, but not all of them..
Have you ever tried Diatomaceous Earth 100% food grade? It’s all natural, no chemicals..it dehydrates their bodies to skeletons. I place around side of house, shed, fence..anywhere to keep spiders out. I’ve used it so I know it works. It will take a few days, but here in the south we have a problem with brown recluses even in houses and it works in the home as well. Perma Guard is the best one.
DE doesn’t work for me here in FL very well. Too humid and wet which reduces its effectiveness overnight.
Maybe it’s the breed of chicken that’s the key.
Could some like to eat spiders as a tasty treat, while others shun them as “fowl” tasting bugs?
Good point. I have Rhode Island reds.
Natural spider repellant. Go to your local health food store and buy peppermint essential oil and place around your outside doors. Spiders hate the smell and taste of peppermint. They won’t come into your home anymore. Good luck.
We have around 100 chickens and 14 ducks. I don’t find chickens to be good at spider control at all. If they were, I wouldn’t have to regularly clean cobwebs out of our coops.
Although this sounds like a good idea, and it probably does help, we’ve had large flocks of chickens since we moved to our current home almost 8 years ago. They free range up close to the house all the time – and they’re free to roam almost all day. We have horrible spider problems year round despite the chickens. The worst are the brown recluse and black widows.
We have chickens that come up and around the house, and have a really bad problem with spiders. Not sure how you were able to rid of them all? Did it take lots of time all year? We have lots of different bugs, chickens don’t seemed to be interested. May not work for everyone.
Spiders make webs in our coup. That’s one of the reasons my daughter doesn’t like to go in the coup.
I’m more concerned with spiders in the house. I was thinking of putting the chickens in the house but don’t think that would fly. LOL.
I clicked the link and really didn’t expect chickens as the solution! We don’t have huge spider problems, so I’m not really concerned – but I like to know these things when others ask. We live in a townhome with a shared yard, certainly no chickens here 😉
I have heard about chickens helping with this… my issue is ticks. I can’t help wondering though, if a chicken eats a tick with Lyme… would it then no longer be safe to consume its eggs or use for meat ?