Adding bugs to your backyard

Iheartmyhens

Songster
9 Years
Apr 16, 2010
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Yup, sounds crazy, but I'm thinking about it to give my pet hens something more to forage for.

Buying mealworms or crickets would be cheap as an occasional treat, but I don't want a bunch of extra crickets making noise if they escape from the hens.

Buying nightcrawlers is expensive, but I am thinking of letting some go in a protected area so they can populate and spread.

Ladybugs are cheap, don't hurt trees/plants(ie aren't a pest I mind having around) and probably good for hens.

Anyone else tried this? Any thoughts/suggestions? We have a good sized sideyard, but you all know how well hens can clear out a space
 
Some people culture mealworms. You can also culture the red worms used in worm composting. In nature, I think they hang out under the leaf litter.
 
When I buy cricket, none ever escape the hens. Here in wet Washington crickets are rather rare anyhow. I was looking yesterday, but the stores were out.

Several people have posted that their chickens won't eat ladybugs. Apparently they taste bad. But they are good for aphid control. Release them in the evening or they may fly away.

You could put something on wet ground and a day or two later pick it up and there may be lots of worms on the surface. I have a compost pile that breeds worms. Lots of little ones. And a few huge ones.

You could try a maggot bucket. I've never done it- sounds gross. It goes something like:
Hang a bucket with holes in it. Put something dead in it. Let the flies get to it. The resulting maggots will fall through the holes, for the chickens. You could search for better details.

Imp
 
Thanks, I was wondering about the ladybugs!

My hens love earthworms and we have lots of bricks in the sideyard-I spread them out and move the bricks over on occasion to give them access to all the goodies underneath. A couple of good finds is what won my hens over! They were several months old when we first got them and pretty scared of me!

I will go ahead an try the crickets. Don't know if I would be willing to do the maggot bucket bit it's worth considering. Thanks!!!
 
I have red worms in my house, glass aquarium, is the kids worm farm! Great for the kids, a few different colored sand , news paper bottom, and composite the top, and some light water now and then, Its great fun for everyone to watch them dig their way and make homes, then when they get too many, dinner time chickens!!!!

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Ah rats. I was hoping they'd eat those little buggers. And, for anybody that would like to release them, I would carefully consider it. We have an invasive species here and they're absolutely intolerable. There about the only thing that is worse than the Gypsy Moths.
 
I have had meal worms going for the last month or so. I went down and got about 50 of them from a pet store. They all turned to beetles in about three weeks so I ordered 1000 more from someone here at byc. Since I don't want 1000 beetles laying eggs I refrigerated about half of them and am letting the other half mutate. I think I have about300 or so beetles in a large but shallow rubber container that should be laying about 5 eggs a day each. That is probably going to be way more worms than I need but they can be fed to the wild birds as well.
There are also wax worms and even silk worms that are easy no flight type insects. I woudl not recommend lady bugs not only for the reasons mentioned before but they fly and usually do not stay around long enough for you to get back in the house. You might want to do some home work and see what you can plant that might attract a few bugs as well. I know that some flowers will drastically increase certain moth traffic etc.
earthworms if your chickens will eat them. if not they do the yard and garden a lot of good.
good luck I am big on free food myself.
 

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