COCKROACHES IN THE COOP

[smallflock]

uH...I opened the top of the chicken tractor today, which is new and hasn't been used by the 3 month old girlie birds but for a couple of days, and about 5 cockroaches scattered out from under the door. I have a Chicken protector spray I put on the hens and their bedding, but should I be worried about these pests?

 

[panner123]

Put the chickens in there and you won't have a roach problem. Byut you will have some happy chickens.

 

[gila_dog]

I feel sorry for any roaches that are in there when the chickens arrive. To a roach, or any other bug, a chicken is like a tyranosaurus-rex. They are voracious predators for any kind of insects. I love to find a big fat tomato worm and throw him into the chicken pen. One will grab it and run around with it while the others chase around trying to steal it. Before long the worm is torn to pieces and devoured. Grasshoppers also better stay out of the chicken pen!

 

[hoosier]

Don't you just love watching them play 'chicken football' wth a grasshopper or tomato worm? (I have been known to let a small one eat an extra day or two just to fatten it up for them!)

 

[Somechick]

When chickens were loose in the yard around my house, I never had cockroach problems like most people around here do when the weather starts getting cold! Nothing could get past them! Better than any exterminator.

 

[NoelTate]

Your girls will love the treat! I store my food in a covered plastic garbage can in my coop, and roaches get under it now and then. I also have cedar trunks around the edge of the pen to help keep anything from digging into it, so roaches get under those as well. Now and then, I lift them so the roaches run out. The chickens LOVE chasing them down and getting a treat! Rarely does a roach escape. Now, were they closer to my house, I probably would not be as likely to let them keep the roaches around for snacks, but down in the field it's ok.

 

[Half-a-dozen]

Does the chicken food attract roaches??? are they like roaches that would be found in a house or are they wood roaches??? and if so what do they look like??

 

[nccountrygirl]

We have then here to, When it starts getting warm they crawl, fly, and run out of the woods toward my house. I have the hibbie jibbies just thinking about this right now knowing that soon I will have them around my woods again. How do they look? Like a big black stretch Cadillac. We call them Palmetto bugs down here and they are ugly. I keep a can of Raid on my front and back porch. They are why we build my screened in back porch, but some how they still manage to get in, so they get sprayed big time. Can to tell how much I hate them.

 

[Miltonchix]

I have been blown away by how few bugs I now have. My 2 hens are like Navy Seals when it comes to bugs. OVERWHELM WTH NO MERCY! They freerange about an hour a day is all too.

 

[JudyMcKinn]

Somebody stop me if I am wrong, --I got on here to see what I could find about roaches--I seem to remember that they are a danger to the chickens--that they get some sort of disease, or worms, or something, by eating cockroaches. Anyone remember anything about that? I know 2 or 3 years ago I read something, found some roaches under my feeder and waterer in a coop, and got some spray and got rid of them. Getting old, and my memory is shot, and I can't remember what they caused, or what I sprayed with. Any help appreciated.