These are the oven dried grubs of the black soldier fly. They have more calcium than dried meal worms, so I switched when I noticed the hens’ eggs were getting thin (back when they were still laying, long, long ago). At first I mixed the grubs and mealworms, then slowly moved to all grubs. Most of the hens didn’t care, but I had two that gave me the stink eye for withholding the mealworms. Happily, after about two weeks, even the recalcitrant birds were chowing down.

No, I will not be attempting to raise these grubs. Flies drive me bonkers.

I have a hypothesis on the eggless condition of my hens. They have a large spacious coop, and although all the food is outside, they like to hang out inside frequently. I have windows in the coop, but they are north and west facing and don’t let in a huge amount of light. The chicken books says the hens need 12 hours of light to stimulate egg production. I don’t believe in keeping the light at 14-16 hours year round, but maybe I should install a timer in the coop so it is at least light in there when the sun is up.

Happy Thanksgiving! My family won’t eat butternut squash, but the chickens like it. It also hangs easily using a gimlet and kitchen twine. The twine is tied in a circle and clipped to the carabiner so the hens can’t ingest it.

I admit, I really just wanted to get the pumpkin out to the chickens without much fuss with the knife. I could have cut it in half and left it at that, but since it takes a few days for the chickens to consume the squash, I like to hang it off the ground so the ants and dirt don’t get in. (Or at least as much dirt. Chickens have dirty beaks when they’ve been pecking away at the ground.) So I used a gimlet (very neat, handy tool for making holes, predates the electric drill by a bit), and put cotton twine through the hole to make a loop.

I have a steady variety of greens going out to my hens. I sprout alfalfa and mung beans in a counter-top seed sprouter and take out the wee seedlings when they are ready (I know it is time for the bean sprouts to go out when they lift the lid and make a bid for freedom). The wheat grass salad bars in the runs have been thriving with occasional reseeding. I discovered I can wedge several stalks of basil in the hole in the chicken swing (the basil stalks are quite sturdy and this secures the stems so the chickens can pluck off bits of leaf). And I still do hang the occasional cabbage or pumpkin for consumption. (I bought the cabbage intending to make sauerkraut, but jars are ridiculously expensive right now, so I’ll try another time!)