Why do chickens refuse to eat rolli pollies?

[carrlr]

Quote:
So the soap is safe for the chickens?

 

[ErinG]

Quote:
So the soap is safe for the chickens?

I was wondering the same thing...seems like a bad idea to mix anything ending in "cide" with something chickens will eat.

Mine will eat potato bugs, but know better than to mess with a honey bee. Makes me wonder if they've been stung.

 

[Wynette]

What's a rolli polly? I am visualizing what I called potato bugs as kids, but that name is also used in the post, so I'm thinking they are not one and the same....

 

[carrlr]

Better known as a Pill Bug or Sow Bug. Rollie Pollie is the name given by children because they can roll their exoskeletons into a small ball.

 

[Tracydr]

I was wondering the same thing! I have thousands of these bugs in my garden and they eat my lower tomatoes, young greens, seedlings. I scooped up a cupful yesterday when I found them under the mint pot. Gave them to the chickens and after one peck, they said no thanks. They usually love ants, crickets, even cockroaches!

 

[swmalone]

Well I use a peppermint castille soap mixed with water. It really only works on soft bodied insects and interferes with their ability to breath. This is designed as a safe alternative, and the way I use it I spray it on specific little grass hoppers. It isn't a repellent so you can't just spray it all over the place. You actually have to spray the little sucker, so once I spray it I then squish it and dispose of it. I catch the bigger ones because the soap doesn't work on them or let the chickens go crazy after them as long as it is outside of my garden area.

 

[scooter147]

I have a few hens that come running when they see me at the garden pond and stand at the large decorative rocks and demand I roll them so they can eat the rolli pollies.
Now my hens are strange in that if I dig up or uncover a worm and through it in their run they stare at it like I'm trying to poison them and won't eat it. Now when they get to free range I've watch them many a times find worms and eat them. Strange!!!

 

[Urbanfarmerkc]

My chickens seem to eat everything else including potato and squash bugs. I put my little cochin hen in the garden when she has chicks and I NEVER have bugs but rollie pollies are another thing all together. They won't even peck them just ignore them... No idea why but I'm leaning toward the "they get stuck in their throats" answer...


Chickens that don't eat worms are weird. Mine have the best time when they find worms.

 

[ChicksterJo]

My chickens do not eat rollie pollies either. We have so many of them and they do not really bother what I have growing in the garden right now - but there are so many that it's a shame they don't want them.

 

[Alexia]

My hens absolutelly LOVE rolli pollies