Best way to deal with acorns?

[scgargoyle]

We get them several inches deep sometimes from our oak tree. Ours are live oak, which are very small, so the rake doesn't work. I've picked them up from our postage-stamp yard with a shop vac- takes about 2 minutes to fill the thing up! Then you wind up with hundreds of pounds of acorns, and no place to dump them around my place. I've had trouble getting the garbage man to take them- they won't pick up if the cans are too heavy.

 

[skipro3]

Around here we have wild turkeys that have been taking over. 7 years ago, not a turkey in site, now the place is lousy with them! I see flocks of 50 or more every day. Anyway, I used to have an acorn problem. I would just leave them, but they would start growing and then it was even harder to deal with the problem. Now that the turkeys have arrived, there are zero acorns on the ground. In fact, I've not seen a volunteer oak tree in the entire 3 miles square surrounding my place. I guess you can fence off the area and buy a few turkeys from the feed store. Once they eat all the acorns, butcher them and have a nice Thanksgiving meal. I bet that nut will make the meat taste pretty sweet too. Maybe a goat.... advertize to put up a goat for a couple months during the nut falling season or something...

 

[scgargoyle]

Pork finished on acorns is supposed to be the best- get yourself a coupla pigs!

 

[gwdemos]

Acorns are a major issue for me. Dozens of 70 yr old oaks in 6 acres of lawn
acorns, twigs, branches, and leaves. if it were just leaves- piece of cake. cutting the grass short makes blowing/and vac work easier - but that also means your are pushing the acorns further into the ground as you ride along cutting.

my stuff: Kubota BX24, Agri-Fab Sweeper, RedMaxEBZ8001-RH back pack blower, and the Old Troy Bilt 8HP chipper/vac.

my routine is to blow with the back pack hitting every twig and submerged acron blowing stuff close to the tree trunks, then vac. i work every weekend for 6 weeks doing this.

no squirrels, no turkeys - because of coyote and bobcat. so its just me and alot of decibels.

I looked into PTO blowers/vacs but i dont see how a pto blower will get the acorns accurately like the back pack can. i have to literally dig the tube of the blower into the ground often to loosen the nuts.

if anyone truly has this situation with acorns and a good sized yard, and has had real success with a pto blower/vac, please advise.

and yes, i get it, i could cut down the trees but at the moment i have 20 cord stacked and split.

 

[Uncle Doug]

You can get you a few goats which also love acorns.

If not into goats you can get one of these
Outdoor Vacuum, Lawn Vacuum

 

[zzvyb6]

www.rentasquirrel.com

 

[jinman]

Scrat will help.

Scrat

 

[heehaw]

the best hivac lawn mower i have ever used was a snapper rear engine rider: it would pick up rocks: you might try picking up a good used one an try that: i believe it would pickup acorns with no trouble at all.
heehaw

 

[Taylortractornut]

After everyone here had their places logged a few years ago alot of folks came behind my shop and would take acorns for deer bait and squirrel feed. Also some folks now are buying them to mayke wind breaks for their places Theres a man just picked up 20 pounds of white oak acorns to root in coffee cups to mak a wind break for his place.

 

[gwdemos]

no livestock allowed in my title. in three years i have not seen a single squirrel in my yard. i am certain the coyote and lynx have taken care of them.

so far as the billygoat (lawn vac that is) i'm sure my 8hp troybilt lawn vac does the same -- takes a long long time

theres no easy way out of this im afraid.

ANY one use a PTO Blower (giant vac, agri-metal) curious of your results in a similar landscape