June Beetles are Good Eats

Also known as a June Bug, they are really quite pretty.  They look like giant emeralds and glisten in the sun with this iridescent shimmer.  And lately, some of the droppings in The Spice Girls run have had bits of iridescent shimmering green bits in them.

Fully grown June Beetle.  They sound like a GIANT bumble bee when they fly and they tend to fly in circles.

June Beetles will lay eggs which will grow into these grub and then morph into June Beetles in the late summer. 

So I've had my suspicion that they were eating these things but I just couldn't believe it.  But it's TRUE!

My husband took the girls some spinach the other day and was holding it for them while they nibbled at it.  When all of the sudden there was this loud buzzing sound and what looked like a giant humming bird buzzed into the girls run.

Coco suddenly lost all interest in spinach and ran over to where the beetle had landed.  She grabbed it in her beak and it got away.  She grabbed it again and again it got away.  This happened several more times before she got a good hold on it and wrestled it to the ground and took her prize off into the corner where she could choke it down on her terms.

You can't watch something like that and not think of the movie Jurassic Park and realize how close chickens are to their cousins, the dinosaur.  My girls are so sweet and gentle but watching Coco deliberately and viciously go after her pray just makes me glad that they are as small as they are.