My chickens seem to be vegetarians. how do I get them to eat any bugs

[annroberts54]

My flock consists of 3 girls and 2 boys. Breed is Blue Laced Red Wyandottes. They are right around 3 months old. They are healthy, live in a nice coop 22 hrs a day and free range for 2 every evening.

My issue is, they will not eat any bugs I have yet to try and give them.......except Japanese beetle grubs. Which I would love to dig up by the tons but can't!! But otherwise, they just eat their chick starter and lots of kinds of garden weeds. I saw several YouTube videos of people capturing Japanese Beetles and then feeding them to their chickens. You see the chickens in the video just gobbling them up like candy. They say they are great protein for the chicks.

Is this something they grow into? Or particular to a breed? I don't have to feed beetles to the chicks to get rid of them. I capture and then dispose of them all the time anyway. But I would love to have them help out in some sort of organic bug protection for the garden. Any ideas out there from the vets out there in chickenville?

 

[PhilErvin]

Give them time................

 

[BrattishTaz]

I can take a while for them to try new foods.

They will eventually get it.

 

[AlienChick]

I was concerned about the same thing when mine were young.

I even dug up a big fat juicy earthworm and they just walked over it as if it was in their way!

Now they're older (about 17 weeks old) and they find their own worms and eat 'em with much delight!!

Give 'em time and they'll figure it all out.

 

[MI chickens]

Have you tried giving them slugs? My chickens (8 week old teens) love them but it took a bit for them to figure out they were edible. One finally grabbed one and ran and the chase was one. Then the rest of the slugs were history.

 

[annroberts54]

We tried slugs early on and didn't get alot of interest in them. We don't really have a bad slug issue here anyway. The worst bugs for us are the striped and spotted cucumber beetles, japanese beetles and squash bugs. I have read that almost nobody likes the squash bugs unless maybe it is turkeys and i don't want to get into any other poultry besides chickens for the time being. The striped and spotted cucumber beetles were the ones i was hoping they would go for. They are small enough and such a huge problem for anyone growing curcubits. Another bug I would love to see go away is the stink bug. But again I have heard that they are not on anybodies diet list!

 

[Arielle]

We had a hen come into lay in Feb, and she loved dwhat ever earthworms she could fing in early spring. Then with leave out, she stopped laying and stopped eating the earthworms. Well, she is back laying again, and back eating earthworms again!

My other hens are about 4 1/2 months and just starting to lay and now some of them suck down the worms licky-split, too! One SS is underfoot while I weed looking for crawlers!

My experience is that girls in lay, with a higher protein need, eat loads of worms. They all try to snatch a flying bug out of the air thought--very comical!

Hope this helps. GL