Topic of the Week - Feeding mealworms, bugs etc.

[No Coop No Problem]

I feed mine mealworms and they seem to not care too much for them. When we’ve let them out to free range, a few of them have JUMPED and killed moths… I was cheering them on.

I've seen my chickens snatch bees and wasps out of the air and swallow them. It was surprising to witness at first

 

[RobG7aChattTN]

I raise my own mealworms to feed my birds but mostly I give them to baby chicks. I feel like giving chicks lots of live mealworms for the first few days of life greatly enhances vigor and survivability. Live mealworms are also a great device when trying to make birds tame or to get their attention for taking photographs.
I raised Dubia roaches for a while and they were great in every way except for the fact that they are giant cockroaches and that gives them a big “ick” factor.
In the summer I put brooder waste in big pots in the woods, add water and let it ferment. Starting in June the wild black-soldier flies show up and quickly fill the bins with larvae. I can usually harvest a ton all summer unless wild animals discover them.

 

[redinator]

My flock gets a daily treat of dried mealworms and sunflower seeds, but as for "live" treats they are on their own. I provide the opportunity for that by letting them forage in the yard and in my 50' x 60' garden. I especially like this time of year when the days warm up just enough that some bugs come to life and the flock finds them and eats them before they have a chance to reproduce. I flipped over a large pile of weeds in the garden the other day and there were hundreds of baby spiders running around underneath. The flock had them devoured in minutes.

Though I have read some bugs and earthworms can cause parasites I do not discourage my birds from eating anything that comes natural to them. I believe a diverse diet (even with the risk of parasitic involvement) is much more healthy than a cooped-up feed only diet.

I discovered this trick unintentionally. I set pavers in the chick pen to keep then from kicking bedding into the feeders and waterers. When I went to clean it out after 4-5 days there were maggots under the pavers. I was grossed out but my 5 week old chicks came to the recuse, lol.

 

[RcoM]

I have an insect light in the garage that attracts and traps moths mostly- using a UV black light and wind tunnel. The contents are emptied next day to the relish of the flock. What started as a help to humans became a help to birds!

 

[HerdAndHome]

I throw out about 1/4 cup dried mealworms to my 9 girls in the enclosed chicken yard each morning. They have desecrated the grass so not too many bugs left. I will have to try the concrete block trick to get bugs to congregate beneath it. I also bring home forty live, large crickets from the pet store when I go. That's fun for them.

 

[CabritaChicks]

My guys are totally obsessed with Caribbean sugar ants—those insanely tiny swarmers that can strip the insides of a dead bird in under an hour. Full-on National Geographic stuff.

They go crazy over the the little moving dots. I just don't want the chickens to get swarmed (they will even swarm and bite humans). Right now, they are 'tracking' Anole lizards- a delicacy for all the animals, and they are super easy to find (every second on the money), but catching them is an entirely different story.

And I am not sure what lives in the giant air plants all over the property- but they drink the water captured in the crevices and eat whatever lives in there.

Today we are going to go explore around the termite mounds, and the baby mudcrabs in the mangrove portion have just emerged. The property is very large and generally untouched with teh exception of some pathways, so they like me to 'lead the way' when they explore new spaces.

Edit: not sure why this dispersed: but my girls won’t eat dried mealworms, or soldier flies. Spoiled ?

 

[Missunderstood1017]

I put some cinder blocks out in the run and every few weeks I'll turn them over and the chooks go crazy for the bugs, it's pretty funny to watch

I've also seen my dad feed them *still living) mice that have been caught in the trap. That was pretty gross, but the chickens were thrilled

I do the same. Any time i even touch one of the blocks even if im not flipping it the whole flock crowds around. One summer there was a mouse nest under a couple blocks i had stacked together. I went to move them and it was like an explosion of these small little field mice and the whole flock went nuts they ended up catching every single mouse and for almost 2 weeks afterward they combed every inch of that area everyday expecting to find more.