One of the hens caught a mouse!

[LadyCad]

I've never seen this, it was gruesome but fascinating.

Both hens were very, very excited about it and it was gone within seconds. Saves me having to trap it I suppose!

god I read this title as caught a

MOOSE - I was thinking WTF

My mother reports seeing a mouse run across her hen run. It didn't make it to the other side!

Ours catch frogs regularly.

I once found a from with only one leg slowly rotating on the lawn. The hens all tried to look innocent, but they weren't fooling anyone

Hens are just dinosaurs with feathers.

They like nothng better than a bit of meat but I wish ours would catch rats.

Makes me laugh when I see "vegetarian" hen food in the farmshop.

Not yet met a veggie hen!

A frog, obviously. Doh.

Mind you, our free range sows used to like nothing better than to scoop up a hen in their jaws occassionally. One crunch and hard swallow and it was gone.

What goes around comes around in the great cycle of life.

Now that does surprise me! I never figured pigs as hunters in that way

Pigs eat people quite regularly as well.

Wha?!

Omnivorous! Will eat anything from a human to your washing!

Did anyone see the hen catching and eating the mouse on The Private Lives of Chickens on BBC1 the other night? Ugh. She swallowed it whole too ... and to think that I dice pasta into tiny pieces for fear that my girls will choke on it

the veggie hens thing - Defra regulates that you're not allowed to feed hens/chickens meat, but that they are allowed to kill and eat their own food. (eg bugs and mice etc)

Millie - that part reminded me of my Erica - the bit where she runs off to get away from the other birds so she can have the whole mouse! Erica did that - the first time she caught one we weren't sure she should have it (on a farm where they use rat poison), so we ran after her to get it and she ran away from us - round and round the garden!

! I never knew hens hunted! So can I feed our chooks stuff like bacon fat? Or not?

no, you should not by law.

however, if you aren't planning on selling your eggs to anyone (eg surplus), then you can feed them anything you like.

chickens love anything meaty (apart from chicken, for obvious reasons), so, yes, for bacon fat, they would go mental!

I'll try it then. I don't feed the chickens meat but couldn't remember why, especially as you get those fat balls for wild birds which are made with lard etc.

Bacon is a bit salty - can't remember why but I'm sure hens should not have salt.