I know, it doesn’t look that big in the picture, but my dog weighs about 50 pounds, and that turtle was about 20 feet away from him. Trust me, it was a big turtle. The thought did cross my mind to get in for a closer picture, but I like my dog’s nose whole, and myself whole for that matter. (We are in Texas, we are nearly country, and walking into someone else’s yard is grounds for getting shot. I respect that. Turtle pictures can wait.)
I trimmed most of the property (OK, the front of the property, the back is still wild). I cut down the spent wild flowers and trimmed around the yard and coop, went through a tank of fuel, and spent about 2 hours outside. I didn’t get pictures of all the critters (I’d still be out there), but did get some!
Well, at least a completely different reaction. To cockroaches. I opened the cupboard in the coop and a cockroach was clinging to the door, so I flicked it off toward the chickens (who are now always at my feet awaiting tid bits). No screaming, no shivers of revulsion, just expedient extermination. I didn’t get the greatest picture, but you can tell the chicken has something in her beak!
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!
The chicks are definitely drawing attention. The trail cam that was only taking pictures of waving plants over a month ago is now capturing images of raccoons, opossums, cats (of course), and even an armadillo.
I have to admit, I forgot to check the camera for a couple weeks. It was quite eye opening when we finally went through the card!
Critters and Craft 