My Wyandottes have turned into Velociraptors!

[Lady Marion]

I have a butterfly net, and go around the pastures, catching the ever-abundant grasshoppers. it was a great way to teach my very first batch of peeps (got them May 27th. fifty of them!) how to free range. Even now, whenever they see me with that net, they follow me as rats follow the Pied Piper......

We have some Production Reds we got last year as full grown laying hens, and we named them "raptors" because they reminded us of velociraptors more than the Dominiques did.

Judy

 

[Kriquet]

Now I get it! I'm a bit slow this time of night - I will definitely see about raising my own mealworms!!

Thanks for the information!

 

[NewRIRMom]

I also raise my own crickets. Right now I have 2 large and 2 small containers of various sized crickets growing. I started with a group of adults (500) and gave them a dirt box to lay eggs. At the end of 2 weeks I removed the dirt box and put it another container. The babies continued to hatch for about 1 1/2 weeks. I seperated babies into larger containers over a 4-5 days period until all the eggs hatched. They will be ready to feed at about 4-6 weeks. They eat the same things my mealworms eat and I spend about an 30-40 minutes per week cleaning and feeding. I love knowing that the "bugs" I'm feeding are healthy just like my chickens. Mealworms do take longer to grow then crickets but once you get a colony going it's great. My coop is half of my greenhouse and that's where I keep my bug nursery. The girls know that the treats come from the conatiners so I always have quite an audience when I'm tending to the crickets. Good Luck!