Oh gross!

[Nicole01]

A.T. Hagan :

Fred's Hens :

Agreed. No matter folks pet them, coddle them and fluff them up, the chicken is a dinosaur at heart and by instinct will catch and eat anything they can.

Ayep. And if chickens came twenty feet tall they'd eat YOU.​

 

[Love my Critters!]

We had a little field mouse fall into the feet tub and we lowered my silkie roo Romeo into the tub. Once he saw the mouse moving he freaked out and made a crazy noise and crawled up my arm to my shoulder. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with that tiny mouse. My chickens are soooo brave

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

I remember reading that one breed of chicken, I think it was the Buckeye is a notorious mouser and that folks used to consider that a plus. Keep the chickens in the barn, cut down on the rodent population and provide a free source of protein at the same time. Hey, turning mice into eggs! Sounds like magic to me!

I have one pullet who always has to carefully examine my foot wear when I enter the run. I thought she was just fashion forward, but perhaps she was just checking to see if my toes were available for a snack.

 

[Amyable]

I took a Parasitology class in college, and you wouldn't believe the stuff that lives in grasshoppers.

There's bugs on everything. Just let 'em eat it if they want it.

 

[chi-rn]

I liked to died 1st time my one of my "ladies" caught a huge toad. Amazing how fast that thing went down her throat! EEEEWWWWWWW!

 

[Nicole01]

Love my Critters! :

We had a little field mouse fall into the feet tub and we lowered my silkie roo Romeo into the tub. Once he saw the mouse moving he freaked out and made a crazy noise and crawled up my arm to my shoulder. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with that tiny mouse. My chickens are soooo brave

That is so funny!​

 

[oldrooster]

I have never seen a chicken eat a shrew or mouse but on some occasions my cat will not eat the intestines of those animals and as of yet never had worms but that might change, but I wonder if nature does not give some critters the knowledge not to eat certain infested innards.

 

[bluegiantsc]

The summer before we got our chickens, we had about 6 billion baby toads all over the yard. You couldn't walk without stepping on 10, it was awful. This summer, I've seen maybe 50 baby toads. Thanks to my chickens our toad numbers have gone down drastically, along with our spider numbers. I've seen my chickens fight over a lizard, they played tug-of-war with it, the hen won. And they will catch a mouse if they can find one. I have 4 outside cats that they have to compete with to get the mice.
They are my amazing little dinosaurs and I'm glad they eat all the little critters, and they're no worse for wear because of it.

 

[Nicole01]

Funny, my chickens will not eat toads or frogs, but they do kill them all the time!

Our cats catch the rodents and leave them. I try my best to scour the yard looking for any dead rodents before letting my girls out. Once in a while I miss one and they devour it like crazy!

 

[debid]

Quote:
I've said before and I'll say it again, I would NOT want to faint in the chicken coop. You do all sorts of nice things for your chickens but don't think for a moment that they wouldn't eat you given the chance.

And yes, mine eat whatever random protein sources they can find. They found a nest of lizard eggs once and it was a feeding frenzy. I let them have whatever they catch. When the cat caught and decapitated a young rabbit (she rarely eats more than the head), I considered throwing the rest in the coop. But, then I thought about the potential of having to clean up whatever they didn't eat...