Help - dung beetles?

[Serotonin]

Thank you all for the reassurance! Keeping the chicks cool in this heat wave is taking all the energy I have, so I really didn't have the capacity for another problem. The beetles do seem to be eating or rolling away the poop in the run, so maybe we can live harmoniously. Right now my chicks struggle to figure out how to eat a kernel of corn, I doubt they could eat a bug that big anyway.

Oh, do they live in those holes?

They seem to. Three tunnels/holes appeared shortly after I introduced the chickens out there. I thought they might be a rodent or a snake tunnel, but I've seen the beetles hang around them so I'm inclined to believe it's their doing.

 

[ashcons]

Looks like a pinacate beetle, we also call them stink bugs because if you poke them they stick their butt up at you. They stink if you step on them or make them mad. They’re found all over the dry areas of the west, I see them on my property all the time here in the high desert of So Cal.

I grew up in the high desert in N.Cal. 25+ years later, just thinking about that smell makes me feel sick.

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

I grew up in the high desert in N.Cal. 25+ years later, just thinking about that smell makes me feel sick.

Haha it’s such a nasty smell. Even the chickens won’t eat those smelly beetles.

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

I doubt they could eat a bug that big anyway.

I definitely don’t think you’ll have to worry about your chickens ever eating those beetles. Hardly anything actually eats them becasue they smell (and most likely taste) very very bad. They stick their butts up to warn predators of their spray and the chickens don’t like that they do that and steer clear of them.