Toxic millipedes here :(

[Folly's place]

I'm with oldhen! The frozen north has real advantages.
I lived on Okinawa for two years, and it cured me of living in the tropics or semi-tropics. Bugs! Snails! Poisonous snails! Many pit vipers! Typhoons! and earthquakes.
Michigan is wonderful!!!
Mary

 

[April’s Zoo]

Was the one you found very small and a red/orange color?

It was a rust color as I recall, and yes, it was kinda small— maybe 1.5 inches, I think. The typical ones I came across in Tucson were ~4-5 inches, but occasionally I’d see them up to 8 inches long!
The only garden pest I’ve found to be that big here in WA are slugs.
I have pics of a slug on my walkway that was longer than a new pencil. Thinking of it in terms of length and width, it was about the size of a cigar.... I swear, you could saddle these things and ride them.
I read here on BYC that ducks eat slugs, but these are so big, they’d choke a duck, I think.

I'm with oldhen! The frozen north has real advantages.

Well, it gets pretty cold in here in WA... with snow and freezing temps from at least November thru March (I asked my husband why he moved us to the tundra one morning last winter while we were on the ferry and I was shivering with my teeth chattering, feeling like I’d never be warm again. ) but there’s still centipedes, just much smaller ones.

 

[drumstick diva]

I sometimes see smaller ones in basement. I zap every kinda of bug with Spic N'span spray (from $1. tree) that makes anything curl into a ball - then I stomp them. Works for me.

 

[ChickenRelatedUserName]

I lift up a large stump almost every day, and every time my rooster comes over and eats all the centipedes, but won't really go after the millipedes. I think the millipedes are too slow to attract his attention. The ducks will eat anything, which is great because there are also worms and slugs under the log.

I flipped over some rocks and my flock ate at least 100 earwigs in one or two sessions.

 

[LittleMissCountry]

We have bith millipedes and centipedes here, and I have seen some big ones. I will have to keep an eye out, as I did not realize they could harm the chickens! We had a 5 inch centipede in our basement two days ago, and we just had the perimeter of the house treated for bugs a few weeks ago.

 

[GrannyHeeney]

The way I remember the difference is a centipede looks like a walking eyebrow LOL

 

[MROO]

You might be able to use activated charcoal but I imagine it might be hard to get the chickens to eat it safely.

Maybe if you ground it up with some slushy-wet crumbles?

 

[April’s Zoo]

You might be able to use activated charcoal but I imagine it might be hard to get the chickens to eat it safely.

I think you’d have to use the premixed, liquid type and plan on tubing them to get it into them. That’s what they have to do with humans and most animals.

 

[KentuckyRooster]

I know a bit about pedes as I have them as pets.. I've never heard of a chicken dying but they can excrete cyanide so it wouldn't shock me. I've had 4 day skin discoloration from my smokey oaks...

They like rotting wood leaf litter and moist areas. Too dry is not habitable and they have to have rotten veggie and wood matter to eat. Clean this up and it will decrease their activity

 

[KentuckyRooster]

http://pennstatehershey.adam.com/content.aspx?productId=117&pid=1&gid=002846

I had to look up “toxic millipede” because I’ve never heard of such a thing.... I had 4 boys, and they actually played with them when they were little.....

Given the chemicals that the link above says the secrete from their bodies, I wouldn’t let any animal eat them.... I’m that I let my kids touch them!

Apparently the chemicals they give off are “to protect them from predators”.... I guess that’s because the predator is dead and can’t eat more of them?

Unfortunately, your chicken was the “predator” in this case....

I’m sorry for your loss, Granny.... but thank you for educating the rest of us.

The stuff they secrete is foul smelling and tasting.. A lot of species it's not anything more than gross but deters predators. Unfortunately others take it up a notch and go to outright cyanide and they are very not edible.