Insects My Birds Will and Will Not Eat

[centrarchid]

My chickens go nuts over praying mantids. Even bitties just a couple days old will take on a Chinese mantid that is nearly a third of their own weight. They will take it on and they will eat it. Below is a male (normally runs smaller than females anyway) that is unusually small, smaller than any I have ever seen in 40 plus years. I have seen a lot.

 

[ChickyLove]

Mine will not eat earwings. I wonder if they just taste bad?

 

[Spoof]

Mine won't eat fireants, sugar ants or carpenter ants, much to my dismay. I'm having a heck of a time keeping them out of the coop - all three types love to eat chicken poo and keep moving nests in overnight.

They do love the little green crickets though.

 

[galanie]

Mine will not eat any type of ants either. They do love the white termites that I find on rotten wood in the yard though. They wont eat pillbugs and rarely eat earwigs. There are some small black beetles they won't touch. I guess none of those taste good.

 

[TJbfarms]

mine won't eat annoying flies. there is always JUST one in the coop that lands on me and bugs me!!!

 

[Cakela]

Mine don't eat earth worms.... weird chickens.

 

[ChickenSahib]

Quote:
Yeah, that's weird.

 

[knotty]

Quote:
I actually have a few worm farms and thought that the chickens would love them. Nope. Not interested at all.
Their favorite bug is cockroaches.

 

[hawcer]

Mine are only a month old...but so far, they love crickets,grass hoppers,worms,spiders and moths. They just can't wait for the moths to swoop in toward their heat lamp at night...

 

[Tracydr]

Mine won't eat the roly poly pill worms. I'm not sure if mine are sow bugs or pill worms but they won't touch them and I have tons of them, they even get in the house. They do, however, love earwigs, thank goodness, since those are even more damaging to the garden. Although the pill worms eat little baby sprouts, they just decimated my beans this spring.
They also won't eat many ants but every once in awhile I see them eating a few. They love roaches and crickets. The young birds are usually afraid of big tomato hornworms but once they taste them it's they're favorite.