After harvesting the last of the spring Romanesco, I carefully searched the leaves for cabbage worms and ended up with a juicy handful. The pullets loved this treat so much. I made sure to give each girl a couple of caterpillars. If I hadn't, then Lucy would have eaten them all. Wow, that girl loves her treats! She is always the first one to run up to me when she sees me coming.
Along with the bright green cabbage worms, I tossed a medium-sized slug to them. They looked at it, but no go. Then I covered the slug with sunflower seeds to try to tempt them, but still they just ate the seeds that surrounded the slug, but stayed away from the slug. My guess is that since the slug looks suspiciously like the chicken poo, they are avoiding it. I've noticed that the pullets never eat poo...never. The cabbage worms are bright green, and so they are easily distinguished from poo. Smart girls. And people say they've got a "bird brain"...but how many times have you seen a dog eat poo? One more reason that chickens rule!
2 comments:
I haven't tried to give my girls slugs, actually I haven't seen any slugs for a while, but they did go for a snail that I smashed for them. They do love aphid infested brassica leaves also. And yes, they are not at all interested in chicken poop. Your girls are looking great, how nice for them that they get to get out in your garden.
Right now the spanish slug is sweeping over sweden and causing great damage. There's been some attempts at biological biocide and apparently the only species that will touch the spanish slug is a certain duck. Don't know the name in english - barbary duck maybe - but they're called canard barbarie in french. They're super cute when they're chickens, but look a bit off fully grown.
Now, some farmers have started leasing ducks to gardeners with slug issues over the summer.
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