Anyone have chickens scared of worms?!

[PTA Chicks]

I have 8. 2 are about 18 weeks old. 6 are about 10 weeks old. My big girls took almost a month to get excited about meal worms. They were scared initially. They also run away from earthworms and red wrigglers worms. I swear they squeal in terror.
My babies LOVE worms and fight over them. Tug of war deluxe. I've never before had chickens scared of worms! I think it might be because they were kept in a pet shop for me for a month whilst I was building their coop. So all they knew from 4-8 weeks was glass cages and chicken feed. Poor things.

 

[Callender Girl]

Mine aren't scared, they just need no need to eat those nasty, wriggling earthworms since their human momma provides nice, dried mealworms. When you have servants, you don't have to hunt your own food!

 

[PTA Chicks]

Ha ha. My daughter breeds meal worms for them so they're fresh and wriggly. They demolish my mint and will catch a bug but refuse to touch worms. The babies hunt down and devour anything that moves. They're getting so big and fat

 

[chickengeorgeto]

The truth of the matter is that likely more chickens have been killed by Earth worms and their kinfolks than have died from fox attacks. You see, Earth worms etc. are one of the major sources of internal parasites and other deadly pathogens. Most insect species are also harmful if chickens eat them. The longer that chickens have been kept on the ground that housed these worms and insects then the worst they are for your chickens' health.

 

[Callender Girl]

Have earthworms and insects always been a threat to chickens? I know lots of things we believed were true when I was a kid (like just buying chickens and throwing them into a coop without quarantine) turned out to be wrong.

When we were kids, my parents would send my sister and me out into the yard and garden with glass jars to capture grasshoppers that we would then turn loose in the chicken run to watch the ensuing hunts. I guess I don't know if that hastened our birds' demise. Or, if the bigger culprit was Dad beheading them for the freezer. He certainly did not believe in my rule of "once you name them, you can't eat them."