Mealworm massacre
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 1:28 pm
So last night, after losing my final zeeb chick, I went to bed feeling rather sad. Animals are very sensitive to our emotions, and birds are by far no exception.
I have free range finches, basically half of the bedroom is theirs and is set up with a number of perches and play areas. At night, the finches return to their sleeping places, and they spend most of their time in the cage during the late afternoon and evening. I don't lock them up, generally, unless I'm leaving the house and won't be able to supervise.
I also farm my own mealworms, as they are a pain in the buns to get around here, and expensive to boot. Because I am scared to death of mold since I had to trash my first (Admittedly pathetic) colony, I have no lid on my mealworm colony. To avoid the birds from helping themselves, I keep them slid under a table in the dark and out of sight. The birds have never bothered them. Until this morning.
When I woke up to Scrambles singing merrily, I was really happy because he hasn't been very well lately. He has some kind of chronic illness that makes him lose his voice, but this morning he was singing fit to beat the band. I also noticed that the floor of my bedroom was covered with mealworms. I immediately thought, 'Oh no, the birds have knocked over the mealworms.. I had better clean them up before my wife loses her bananas.' But then I noticed that most of the mealworms were dead, killed, mutilated in a variety of ways. Only a few of them were moving, weakly, clearly having survived some terrible trauma.
My birds love mealworms, provided I chop them into manageable bits. Except for Scrambles, a 9 year old cockerel, he hates the taste of mealworms. He refuses to eat them, but boy, does he ever love to kill them. I have never seen such an exuberant and happy animal as Scrambles on the rampage, murdering one mealworm after another, bashing them against the perches, chewing them up like corn on the cob or standing on either end and pulling off the middle only to throw it against the wall for me to clean off later.
Apparently, Scrambles had decided that I needed cheering up, and as his mealworm antics had always made me laugh before and were the most fun thing his tiny bird brain could think of, I guess he thought he'd throw me a little party and have a lot of fun.
Only he'd forgot to invite me. And there was a mutilated meal worm in my hair.
I have free range finches, basically half of the bedroom is theirs and is set up with a number of perches and play areas. At night, the finches return to their sleeping places, and they spend most of their time in the cage during the late afternoon and evening. I don't lock them up, generally, unless I'm leaving the house and won't be able to supervise.
I also farm my own mealworms, as they are a pain in the buns to get around here, and expensive to boot. Because I am scared to death of mold since I had to trash my first (Admittedly pathetic) colony, I have no lid on my mealworm colony. To avoid the birds from helping themselves, I keep them slid under a table in the dark and out of sight. The birds have never bothered them. Until this morning.
When I woke up to Scrambles singing merrily, I was really happy because he hasn't been very well lately. He has some kind of chronic illness that makes him lose his voice, but this morning he was singing fit to beat the band. I also noticed that the floor of my bedroom was covered with mealworms. I immediately thought, 'Oh no, the birds have knocked over the mealworms.. I had better clean them up before my wife loses her bananas.' But then I noticed that most of the mealworms were dead, killed, mutilated in a variety of ways. Only a few of them were moving, weakly, clearly having survived some terrible trauma.
My birds love mealworms, provided I chop them into manageable bits. Except for Scrambles, a 9 year old cockerel, he hates the taste of mealworms. He refuses to eat them, but boy, does he ever love to kill them. I have never seen such an exuberant and happy animal as Scrambles on the rampage, murdering one mealworm after another, bashing them against the perches, chewing them up like corn on the cob or standing on either end and pulling off the middle only to throw it against the wall for me to clean off later.
Apparently, Scrambles had decided that I needed cheering up, and as his mealworm antics had always made me laugh before and were the most fun thing his tiny bird brain could think of, I guess he thought he'd throw me a little party and have a lot of fun.
Only he'd forgot to invite me. And there was a mutilated meal worm in my hair.
