They did not hesitate at downing alewives earlier this summer. The carcass of a nearly 19" bass was a bit more daunting. We filleted it to eat the bulk of the muscle ourselves and I have most of the guts waiting for later. It was still scary when it moved as they tried it. That was yesterday.
One observation is not new but it was really obvious with this. That is the willingness of one hen to hunt and forage vs all the others. Spice will work at finding food - very aggressively. She always has. None of the others come remotely close to that. Part of it is likely that she hogs the opportunities. But I don't think it is much of it. I could be wrong about that.
Anyway, they left the skin of the bass. They cleaned every bit off the skin. I thought they would leave the skull too but I haven't found it yet. Since they are in an 8x10 ft space, it shouldn't be hard to find. I'll sift thoroughly through the bedding after they are done with the next fish too.
Today, they have round two: three pike heads. One big and two smaller. Normally, the state doesn't allow keeping small pike but this particular lake is overrun with them. So we could keep one over 24" and as many as possible of the 12-14". We caught four but one was fed back to the fish in the lake due to a misunderstanding of what I wanted to do with them.
They are working at them off and on. A little. My first thought was they didn't like them. But they are grazing on them pretty consistently. Just a bite now and then. Then they groom for a while or fluff some in the dust bath and such. Then another bite or two. This is how they eat their feed too.
If I went fishing more often, I would look up the nutrition and pros and cons of different ways of feeding it. For now, it is just observations.
They are l molting so extra protein is probably good. Their feed is a bit lower in protein than I would like anyway.
One observation is not new but it was really obvious with this. That is the willingness of one hen to hunt and forage vs all the others. Spice will work at finding food - very aggressively. She always has. None of the others come remotely close to that. Part of it is likely that she hogs the opportunities. But I don't think it is much of it. I could be wrong about that.
Anyway, they left the skin of the bass. They cleaned every bit off the skin. I thought they would leave the skull too but I haven't found it yet. Since they are in an 8x10 ft space, it shouldn't be hard to find. I'll sift thoroughly through the bedding after they are done with the next fish too.
Today, they have round two: three pike heads. One big and two smaller. Normally, the state doesn't allow keeping small pike but this particular lake is overrun with them. So we could keep one over 24" and as many as possible of the 12-14". We caught four but one was fed back to the fish in the lake due to a misunderstanding of what I wanted to do with them.
They are working at them off and on. A little. My first thought was they didn't like them. But they are grazing on them pretty consistently. Just a bite now and then. Then they groom for a while or fluff some in the dust bath and such. Then another bite or two. This is how they eat their feed too.
If I went fishing more often, I would look up the nutrition and pros and cons of different ways of feeding it. For now, it is just observations.
They are l molting so extra protein is probably good. Their feed is a bit lower in protein than I would like anyway.
