Cricket mania

[gritsar]

There's a place in our backyard that is, for some reason, always teeming with crickets this time of year.
A little while ago I was out in the yard and looked over to see small crickets jumping every which way.
So, I went to the chicken yard and picked up the first available chicken, Maggie. Took her to the cricket spot in the backyard and set her down. Immediately she was surrounded, some crickets even jumping on her.
I just checked and Maggie's still out there, practically doing back flips trying to catch all the crickets.
I guess she'll quit when it starts to get dark or her crop pops, whichever comes first.

 

[call ducks]

 

[Wildsky]

We found a bunch of creepy lava type worms under a block of wood a few months ago - we finally grabbed a chicken and brought her over she was so convinced we were going to eat her that she ran away!

 

[ksct]

I certainly wish we had a large cricket area! Our birds love them! Can't bring myself to go buy them. We also tried worms...they liked them when they were a few weeks old, now they don't.... they run from the Night Crawlers. Guess those are only good for fishing. lol

 

[hillsflock]

We had a spot like that around the front of our shop that was overrun with crickets, but once we started letting our chickens free range they dissapeared lol. I led them over to the spot, and raked thru the grass with my feet. The crickets would pour out, and the chickens would go nuts.

 

[Dixiedoodle]

Oh come on, join the nut cases (ME)

that go and spend 10-20$ every week for crickets at the bait shop, take them home and pour them into the yard and then turn the chickens out.... I used to just pour them into the run but that seemed to cause to much chaos!! By pouring them into the leaves/grass the chickens have to look for them..... I don't think one gets away...

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
I was almost that bad when the chooks were little. I tied a big gulp cup to the lawnmower handle. As I mowed and the crickets jumped out of the way, I would stop and grab them up and into the cup they went.
After I finished mowing, which took twice as long with the cricket hunting added, I would dump the whole cup into the brooder and watch the show.