Chicks Eating Big Insects

[centrarchid]

We are starting at 18 inches and working up from there. They will be able to do 48 by end of week.

 

[Geena]

It has always puzzled me that chickens don't use their feet to hold 'prey' down while tearing it with their beaks.

I had a blue orpington rooster that would always hold big things down with his feet while he ate them. He passed that trait down to many of his descendants.

 

[centrarchid]

Here something I want to try, a dobsonfly. Here they are abundant, at least seasonally. Mandibles are scary but no match even for chicks. The nut serving as reference is a little over 3/4" so these critters are large enough to fill a 2 week old chicks crop.

A relative, an owl fly, is more terrestrial but no as abundant. This one gutted by ants. In life they are like low flying night time dragonflies. Check out the long antennae. It is also kin to the lacewings and manticids.

 

[centrarchid]

A chick found a tarantula hawk and tried to get it before hen intervened. Hen produced same trilling call as she went after it. The wasp promptly dug into grass and hen invest no further effort into capturing it. Tarantula hawks are tough like velvet ants.

 

[centrarchid]

Pictures to follow. Hen no longer making trilling sounds, but chicks do occasionally.

Yesterday chicks and hen were challenged with a large June Beetle, smallish Dog Day Cicada and a female Wheel Bug. The first to where consumed very, now with not real help from mother other than she crabbed beetle from me as I spoke with a group of Americorps people. Then I applied the Wheel Bug. Hen would not touch, but chicks attacked aggressively. The chicks attacking wheel bug started squealing and the Wheel Bug protruded her red ass bags of stench. Twice the bug was thrown from the tub everyone was in. After a couple minutes the Wheel Bug was damaged yet alive. Chicks stopped going after it with some wiping beaks on ground a lot. Shortly after the chicks were after adult Differential Grasshoppers and Southern Leopard Frogs that they really wanted.

For a bit the Americorps people were dead set on catching the chicks when they jumped on the ground. I had difficulty impressing upon them that I can call them back later when I need to round them up. Hen was on verge of tying into one that caught a chick and scared it. Just because having chickens at home does not mean you know how to handle them. None of the chicken people in the bunch seemed to realize the the relationship the hen has to the chicks, all they saw was a larger bird that for some reason let the chicks have the insects first. This even with a group with members keeping close to a hundred chickens. I have work to do.

 

[centrarchid]

Following are yummy.
Eacles imperialis ?

Burrowing Mayfly Hexagenia sp.

One of many katydid species (male)

(female) about 3 times heavier than male

Not yummy.
Wheel Bug

 

[centrarchid]

Tackling a male Chinese Mantid that recently molted. Easy mark.

Female Chinese Mantid with harder exoskeleton. She is also more than twice as heavy.