Surprise in the nesting box...

[Garden Peas]

So we've been rearranging things here today. I'm trying to move the chicken hens out from the pea pen. Pealover130's dad put together one of those off the shelf chicken coops for her last spring, but we never moved the chickens into it. We had concerns about critters digging under it, and we kept moving it around the yard, trying to figure out where it fit best (nowhere!). So it sat in the yard, unused, since last spring.

Today, we moved it back near where it started, and buried a wood frame to screw it down to, which will make it lots safer. Plus reattached all the latest boards that went "sproing."

A couple of hours later, I wandered back to it, getting ready to load it up with pine shavings, etc.

I popped up the lid on the nesting box, and look what I found:



In case you have old eyes like mine, this might be easier to see...



So I guess the old dears will have to hang with the peas a few more days till the box airs out and I get it washed. Although, had they been on patrol already, pretty sure this wouldn't have gotten to this size before it became a birdy snack

Not exactly the kind of nesting box surprise I was hoping for

 

[PeaLover130]

YEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MOM, WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME YOU FOUND A BLACK WIDOW!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

THAT THING IS HUGE!!!!!!!!!!

 

[zazouse]

This is exactly why i love using buckets for my chicken hens, spiders bit me all the time.. like monthly

and some of them have turned out down right deadly.



However geese will not fit in the buckets

 

[KsKingBee]

We find widows and recluses in our unused bee boxes all the time, I really don't like them. So I hear they eat bugs, I don't care, I have not found any useful purpose for them yet. I can not kill them with any more enthusiasm.

 

[zazouse]

Yep we got them here also and this little guy, this one gets me pretty often , they are freaken everywhere, i won't even knock down cob webs any more cause them buggers will get me in my sleep

http://www.wikihow.com/Identify-a-Yellow-Sac-Spider

I am forever running into this one but have only been bitten by the male .

 

[KsKingBee]

These are the ones that are really plentiful around the hives, and they are huge!





There are a LOT of eggs in that sack.





I wish these fellows would eat those spiders but seem both enjoy snacking on the bees instead.



This is just a little warm fuzzy to help un-creep you after those nasty pics.

 

[DylansMom]

These are the ones that are really plentiful around the hives, and they are huge!





There are a LOT of eggs in that sack.





I wish these fellows would eat those spiders but seem both enjoy snacking on the bees instead.



This is just a little warm fuzzy to help un-creep you after those nasty pics.

Argiope aurantia or Golden Garden Spider, one of my favorites since childhood. These are very common around my area and as kids we used to actively look for them, then we would touch their abdomen as they hang suspended on the web and they would start swinging forward and back in an attempt to scare us big nasty kids away. They love to put their webs up in corn patches and many times I've walked face first into them and never been bit. They are pretty nonaggressive, but will bite in self defense, bite is comparable to a bee sting. We also get lots of praying mantis here, but they are usually snacking on grasshoppers and crickets.

 

[zazouse]

that is a pretty spider, i love the mantis they come in many colors here.

PS bugs do not creep me out if i did not think that we are the first aliens on this earth the bugs would be my next choice or mabe they are just aliens also

 

[MinxFox]

My favorite spiders are jumping spiders. I love watching them and holding them. I use a close-pin to help secure the pen door, and a little jumping spider lives in and around the close-pin. I have a few spiders living in the peafowl aviary. Once there was a banana spider but he didn't stay long. There was a crab apple spider too but that one is gone as well. I have a rock and a wooden board in the peafowl pen and I turn them over about once a week or so and this year both areas have been the nesting ground for those little earwigs. The peafowl love eating them but I let them eat some but not all. I let them hatch out most of their eggs. That way there will be future peafowl snacks haha.

I am fine with bugs. I am not really afraid of sharks, snakes, etc. The only thing I really don't like is frogs and this month has been terrible for me. I keep accidently touching frogs. There was one on the other side of the barn door so when I grabbed the door to open it, I also touched the frog...Then I was removing a sheath on some new bamboo and a frog was in the curled up end of the bamboo sheath and I touched that one on accident too. I don't know why I just really really don't like frogs.

 

[AnimalsRmyLife]

So we've been rearranging things here today. I'm trying to move the chicken hens out from the pea pen. Pealover130's dad put together one of those off the shelf chicken coops for her last spring, but we never moved the chickens into it. We had concerns about critters digging under it, and we kept moving it around the yard, trying to figure out where it fit best (nowhere!). So it sat in the yard, unused, since last spring.

Today, we moved it back near where it started, and buried a wood frame to screw it down to, which will make it lots safer. Plus reattached all the latest boards that went "sproing."

A couple of hours later, I wandered back to it, getting ready to load it up with pine shavings, etc.

I popped up the lid on the nesting box, and look what I found:



In case you have old eyes like mine, this might be easier to see...



So I guess the old dears will have to hang with the peas a few more days till the box airs out and I get it washed. Although, had they been on patrol already, pretty sure this wouldn't have gotten to this size before it became a birdy snack

Not exactly the kind of nesting box surprise I was hoping for

EEK!! A black widow!

Reminds me of when I found one underneath the drainer thing where the water from the roof goes onto last summer. I sprayed it continuously with the poison repellent spray but I'm not even sure I killed it...