Cicada treats

[mmerritt]

Good morning! My 6-year-old son came home from school yesterday and said his teacher told them that chickens LOVE to eat cicadas. As we're in cicada swarm at the moment, I grabbed a couple live ones and threw them in the run. Well, they didn't last long. My 8-week old girls swallowed them whole. How fun! For a couple weeks we have had live cicadas all over the yard, but they're mostly gone into the trees by now so they're kind of hard to come by. We do have lots and lots of skins hanging around though, so I thought I'd see if the girls would like those too. Well! Check it out:

Mike in VA

 

[RedDrgn]

Oh yes, we learned chickens' love for cicadas by accident last summer when a hapless cicada flew into the run and swooped so low it bounced off of the hardware cloth (too big to fly through it and had come into the run through the welded wire near the top).

It looked like you just gave them the shed skins (or ones that were getting ready to shed)? At some point, catch an adult flier and put it anywhere near them. If you liked how riled they were over that batch, you'll get a kick out of ones that are huge, loud, and fast...SUCH a frenzy and a chase you will have never seen.

 

[kaybats]

Great video! Aren't they awesome?!

 

[theoldchick]

They came back for seconds!


My Dad, rest his soul, used to collect the skins, paint them bright colors, and make necklaces out of them.

 

[Milk Glass Chicky]

That was so cute! On those last few seconds, with that one chick that ran up and started singing that little song, "Want more please? Pretty please?" I swear that's what it sounded like.