We really discovered this almost by mistake, our redworms are grown on outside beds and as a result they produce a very fine worm compost, this compost is put to one side for further refining until sold, whilst being stored it is invaded by a myriad of tiny creatures from spring tails, millipedes, centipedes, little beetles, eelworms, white worms and a 1001 other creatures and their offspring, added to this are a lot of worm cocoons that hatch into tiny redworms, it is a whole soup of tiny living creatures and chickens love it!
Our chickens are free range and get into everything, when this compost is “barrowed down” for further processing we have to fight the chickens otherwise a barrow full is spread around in no time, as chicken owners you will sympathise with this!
Chickens when kept confined in a run or enclosed area soon decimate the surface soil and anything living in it, after a while pretty much every living bug has gone leaving the chickens to scratch around in a pretty barren area, this can lead to boredom and a reliance on food provided for them, natural live foods now being replaced by mealworms, maggots or a few earthworms dug up elsewhere, this is now why we offer this for sale, a small saucepan full put into the run will immediately be set upon, they will pick out every little morsel of food they can find! scratching away to their hearts content.
This product is 100% natural it is completely organic and contains nothing harmful, if there is any left, just sweep it up and put it onto your garden where the natural nutrients will now benefit your plants.
There are also health benefits, chickens are built to scratch and pick, all day long if necessary, when they can no longer do this they will end up with set mealtimes i.e. corn in the morning, maybe extra greens put in during the day and maybe a mash feed at night or whatever your feeding regime is, giving them something to pick and scratch in along with all the live food they will find can provide nutrients, vitamins and minerals that may be missing from their diet, apart from that there is nothing like a bit of live food to keep the crop in good working order and just to make sure we add some extra worms and chicken grit to it, as a bonus, egg yolks look like what egg yolks should look like!