I've watched my older hens play "Keep Away" often - usually with red grapes and/or tasty bug from garden. But this is new to me. Even after 8yrs of incubating our own chicks.
Swedish Flower Hen chicks - literally either 7 days old, 6 days old or one lone 4 day old chick (all eggs set at same time, different hatch rate in same incubator) - one figured out how to tear off a small piece of their paper towel bedding - and took off like a banshee with it! Yep, new game.
So I introduced them to mealworms (very small ones - we grow our own)! Oh, so much more fun! But after two dozen mealworms for 10 chicks...I cut them off. Too bad, they were having such great adventures zipping around their brooder tub, mealworm in beak, chased by two or three other chicks (who usually also had a mealworm in their beaks!).
Even though it's 34 degrees, snowing, cold, windy and yucking outside - at least we all inside can have some fun! Shhhh, don't tell their parents - outside in the snow, wind and cold!
Swedish Flower Hen chicks - literally either 7 days old, 6 days old or one lone 4 day old chick (all eggs set at same time, different hatch rate in same incubator) - one figured out how to tear off a small piece of their paper towel bedding - and took off like a banshee with it! Yep, new game.
So I introduced them to mealworms (very small ones - we grow our own)! Oh, so much more fun! But after two dozen mealworms for 10 chicks...I cut them off. Too bad, they were having such great adventures zipping around their brooder tub, mealworm in beak, chased by two or three other chicks (who usually also had a mealworm in their beaks!).
Even though it's 34 degrees, snowing, cold, windy and yucking outside - at least we all inside can have some fun! Shhhh, don't tell their parents - outside in the snow, wind and cold!
