Ugh. There are cockroaches in the coop. I saw a couple when I opened the cabinet doors, then I found some in the chickens feeder that got stuck and couldn’t get out of the smooth curved walls of the feeder. I captured them and fed them to the chicks (yes! I did!). I spread some diatomaceous earth on the floor of the food cabinet and some more throughout the coop, then started researching what to do about cockroaches.

A couple different bloggers capture the cockroaches in glass jars and then in the morning, let them loose for the chickens. Rather than spray pesticides, we decided to give this a try. We had an empty dog treat jar, plastic instead of glass, but with curved sides at the top of the jar. We put some chicken feed in the bottom, and put it on the floor of the coop.

It worked! The next morning there was a trapped cockroach inside the jar.

I took the jar out to the runs (with the chickens close to my heels), turned it loose out in the open, and a chick caught it! Yay! It was incredibly satisfying watching the chicks devour that insect!