When I came home to check on the chickens at lunch time today, Daisy was in the run all by herself. The other two had jumped up onto the roof of the coop and then flew over the fence – I know this because there was chicken poo on the coop roof. I grabbed Meg and put her back over, but it took me about 10 minutes to catch Victoria.
Over the Fence
August 6th, 2009 .They’re So Cute!
August 4th, 2009 .I was changing the water in the mealworms’ container today, and I noticed a few babies crawling around in the oatmeal! They’re so cute – and by cute I obviously mean small, maggot-like and disgusting!
Now that I have seen some evidence that the adult beetles are producing offspring, I have divided the beetles into two containers – one containing adult beetles and one containing the larva. I will now empty all of the food from the adults’ container into the other container every so often – this is because the adults will lay the eggs in the food, and will also eat the eggs. By transferring the food to another container I will hopefully prevent them from eating too many eggs and produce more mealworms.
I haven’t enclosed any photos because they are too small to get in the shot, but expect some lovely baby pics when they get a bit bigger!
Cruel to be Kind
August 2nd, 2009 .The electric fence kit that I ordered arrived a few days ago, and over the weekend I finally got around to setting it up. As with most electrical things, the net was pretty easy to install and connect, but running the cables was a pain. I have the net at the bottom of the garden, and decided to put the earth stake as far away from the house as possible so this meant I had to run quite a lot of cable.
Electric Fence
The net isn’t really in the correct place yet – I need to trim some branches off of the conifers at the back of the garden before I can move it into place. Also, the wiring isn’t very neat and I need to do something to hide the cables.
When I got it running, I put my hand on it a few times to see how much it hurts and I was pretty disappointed – I could hardly feel it. Then I touched it whilst I was kneeling on the ground and that really hurt! I guess it will work well with the chickens as they are not wearing shoes.
The horrible thing about this is how the chickens have reacted to it. They have all had a shock off it, and as expected this does not make them happy. Even when I turned it off and went back into the coop to spray more poultry shield (the mites still haven’t gone away), they got really scared when I flicked a bit of newspaper. I think this whole thing has been really stressful for them. I must admit I feel pretty cruel at the moment – it’s a pity I can’t explain to them that I am only doing this to give them more space!
Noises in the Night
August 2nd, 2009 .Last night, I was sitting on my sofa, watching an episode of House, when I heard a weird noise – kind of like a moth hitting a window. I heard it a few times, and after a while I realised it was coming from the spot where I keep my insects. When I went to have a look, one of the meal worm beetles kept trying to fly against the side of the container!
I already knew that most beetles are capable of flight, but I thought it was ok to keep the lid off because a couple of websites had said you could do that. Apparently not! At least this explains how one of them escaped…
Where Did my Beetle Go?
July 31st, 2009 .Yesterday, I had a look at my mealworm beetles and they seemed perfectly happy, running around and trying to hide under a piece of wood in their container. When I looked more closely, I realised I could only see 3 of them. I checked through all of the bedding, but there were no dead bodies.
I think 1 of them has either escaped, or been thrown away when I changed their paper towel (I put a damp paper towel in with them for moisture).
Also, I still haven’t found any babies in there, which is odd because I have seen them mating a few times. I think I will have to give in a buy a starter mealworm colony.