Last year I was going to post pix of my bi-color red/white. (Same as Duet but mine was European and had an exotic name)

I had 'something' eating ONLY the white tips (even AFTER cutting it) and leaving all the red! I've never seen anything like it because the white tips vary in depth but whatever was eating it would eat right to the red and then move on.

I suspected the white part was a delicacy for them but have no idea why or if true.

Now I have chickens and ducks in my dahlia garden and hope they will do a number on the ear wigs.

I don't have Jap. beets. and I pretty much eradicated my snails. Whatever was eating mine was probably coming through the air because I clipped my 'Duet' and put it in a can by my chair (across the yard) so I could admire it and several days later I noticed that the tips were receeding slowly. I doubt a snail could or would crawl up a can (though I wouldn't put it past them) and it could have been earwigs but I sense it was something flying because I never saw anything coming or going. Of course it could have been an earwig hiding in the leaves of the bud but I inspected it pretty closely and saw nothing.

I'm surmising also that perhaps the white is simply BLAND but colors have chemicals (?) that pests don't like. So they eat the delicacy part (albeit bland) and shy away from the colors. I also gave up on my white dinnerplate because in our heavy, wet fog, all white flowers (whether roses, dahlias, petunias, etc) look like crap about 2 days later. Colored flowers seem to be able to handle wet better but white flowers turn brownish at the first hint of wet.

DCR

The camera is an older (6-8yr.) Olympus. Its only 3.2 megapix, but has a 30X zoom. I have the camera set so that the pics are pretty dense, which allows me to crop in close and still have good quality images.

The jury is in on the chickens and ducks...They are great for slugs and probably other insects, but I see no let up in the ear wigs. Having a really hard time with ear wigs this year.
I am also suspecting that there are birds who nip in for a snack of white flower petals. Some of the tips are gone on the tallest flowers with no ear wig feces apparent. I also have ants colonizing several dahlias with black aphids. Even though I have seen the poultry reach up to nip a flower I have never seen them do that to get the ant/aphid combos. There is a big ant colony in the woods between the garden and road that we have moved or burned out almost every year but they always come back and have a trail right across the garden to this area like a super highway!

The main damage the chickens do to the dahlias is scratching around the roots and moving the tags! I know now to wire the tags to bamboo posts up at eye level, and possibly bury another one with the tuber. The tubers I planted 6" deep for frost protection are now half exposed. I have no idea where the dirt has gone! The ducks are easier on the dahlias...they seem to spend more time on the grass paths between the rows, looking for slugs. Occasionally they will decide to snack on a plant before the plants are grown out of their reach, but if the emerging plants are tied to stakes when young it helps to anchor then against the snacker quack-ers and prevent breakage.

I have 4 laying hens and 4 ancona ducks (Terrific breed!) in a 60 by 100' garden. I hope next year to have a seperate fenced yard for the chickens, but the ducks stay in the garden.