New treats

Mealworms

We gave them their first treat! We were going to wait before giving them anything other than their regular feed but after a little research we were relieved of our fears that their baby bellies wouldn't be able to handle the treats. All we had to do was add a little grit back in their diet and monitor for "poopy butt" and we were free to introduce live treats! We decided to start with small meal worms so we could hold them in our hands and get the chicks comfortable with being handled. They went absolutely crazy. It was interesting to see their thought process as they first saw the worms. Some immediately grabbed them and ran off, others were slow to approach but quickly realized they were something worth fighting for and a few didn't even look at them when you put them right in front of their face. Each time a chick grabbed their first worm they would start chirping like crazy and running around panicked. They didn't want anyone to steal their prize or for the worm to escape if they put it down to eat it. They went through the hundred count meal worms like they were nothing and continued searching for more. The best part is that now they run to our hands in search for food.

Crickets

We gave them their second treat: crickets! We originally got excited about introduce live treats when we dropped a spider into the brooding box and one of the chicks chased it down and scooped it up. She acted so adorably that we decided to name her Spider and research whether or not they could have live treats. When we gave them meal worms it seemed everyone was excited about them - except Spider. So we decided she probably wanted something a little more active. It was hilarious watching the chicks run crazy trying to scoop up the crickets. They loved them! I was scared they wouldn't be able to eat the large crickets but they swallowed them no problem. After it seemed they had eaten them all, they continued to hunt. They were scratching up the shavings and searching the box. They are amazing hunters and tracked down cricket after crickets when I was sure their were none left. We will definitely get crickets for them again but I think I prefer the meal worms because it encourages the chicks to eat out of our hands.