kattabelly
Chirping
Mine are picky about slugs but never seen them ignore a fly or spit one out after catching it. The reaction when a tiny chick catches a huge bluebottle - or a bigger chicken gets the angle and timing a bit too perfect and a bluebottle more or less flies straight down their oesophagus - is hilariousthey may be as picky about flies as about grasses - there are lots of different species of fly!
They ignore bumblebees but I've not noticed what they do about other bee species. Midges seem to be mostly too small to bother with, unless they spot one that looks particularly juicy or easy to catch. Only the younger chicks tend to go for the little black millipedes that are everywhere here.
I use smashed up woody stems from old dockens, nettles and hogweed as something in between straw and woodchip. The young clipshears/earwigs they find in the bases of docken stems are a great delicacy, apparently.
