What some chickens will eat - GROSS

[CoyoteMagic]

Mine were chasing each other around the yard yesterday. When they came running by me I saw that BroomHilda (big black sexie) had a field mouse in her beak. Lace (red sexie) was hot on her heals trying to get hold of it.

I've seen them grab young copperheads and fight over it too.

 

[Whispering Winds]

Quote:
Not sure if all tarantulas are like this but... I read an article the other day about a guy that was having blurred vision and red eyes. Doctors could not figure out what was going on. Finally they used a very high powered magnifier on his eyes and found that micro-sized barbed hairs were sticking out of his eyeballs. Seems he had recently cleaned out his pet tarantulas aquarium and had his head over in it cleaning the glass. He turned his head to find his "pet" tarantula staring him in the face...close encounter. As it turned out tarantulas (I don't know if it's all breeds of them) in a defensive action can propel barbed hairs off of their backs when threatened.

My recommendation, simple....don't look eyeball-to-eyeball with a tarantula so if your chicken starts having the red-eye don't jump to the conclusion that it's been out partying all night.

FWIW,
Ed

 

[Criskin]

I caught my flock playing what looked like a game of rugby with a poor frog! I'm not sure if it ever got eaten but they seemed to have a blast running around and tackling one another to get their beaks on it!

 

[Ariel301]

Quote:
Don't have personal experience on this one but they might be just a tad fast for them girls. I have gotten the munks with a rat trap baited with peanut butter. Perseverence is the key here.

Yeah, it was probably just wishful thinking. I'd like to use the rat traps, but my mother-in-law (whose house I live in) won't let us use any kind of traps because she's worried about one of her grandkids (not my kids, or they'd know not to mess with things like that!) getting hurt by it. I bought a live trap to catch the pesky things and she refused to let me put it in the garden because 'if one of the kids tries to play with it, they might get their hand cut off!' She seems to think a live trap works something like one of those nasty bear traps with all the teeth lol. Not sure the traps would work well anyway, we literally have hundreds if not thousands running around our property. My husband shoots them when his mom's not home to find out about it.

I found out recently that free-ranging chickens need to be penned up during kidding time for the goats. I was helping a friend pull some tangled up kids out the other day, and her chickens were swarming everywhere picking at the goo and blood! They were pulling on the doe's afterbirth, trying to get the whole thing out to eat it! Gross!

 

[Morgaine]

Mine have slurped up a live snake before

 

[Noble Rooster]

Hee hee, if you want to know why our little feathered dinosaurs, wait I mean chickens, love their tarantula/mouse/frog feasta, check this out! It's pretty interesting.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100127-dinosaur-feathers-colors-nature/

 

[Buff Hooligans]

When I clicked on this thread I was sorta hungry for lunch. Not any more...

 

[Randy]

I'm just glad chickens aren't bigger than us.

 

[Morgaine]

Quote:
So true!

 

[Dinkadoo]

My girls just love baby snakes. And when Petey the chihuaha is outside with them, they kind of eye him with a hungry look in their eyes. LOL