Originally Posted by Drew Hause
Chickens are apparently more effective at tick control than introduced quail, which have a low survival rate
https://shelterislandreporter.times...land-third-year-for-tick-control-effort/

A different story for native bobwhite in the appropriate habitat
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143622817306161

In truth, food preferences are relative, among other things. What is especially tasty in one scenario may be very low on the grocery list in another situation. Not only the presence of other foods affect how much of something you might eat, other factors will affect your choices as well, such as how dangerous it may be to eat it, how difficult it is to eat, and so on and so forth. That said, from the abstract of that paper I linked to, it seems that opossums do not care for ticks under a wide range of conditions.

As for the birds, maybe, maybe not. Possibly turkeys always love them.

Drew, you may find it useful to use scholar.google.com for searches to get to the original, primary literature. It is not the best search engine, but it is free and does reasonably well.

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BrentD, (Professor - just for Stan)
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