I have bought mine minnows used for fishing. It was really fun to watch them catch them up and run off with them. L i bought them worms but they weren't too interested in the worms and most of them squirmed off before the hens even noticed them S. I guess all those cartoons about chickens looking for worms is bogus. mine do love fire ants though, which is great for us and they scratch the entire mound down. I hope this isn't off topic. but i have a questions on how to go about giving my hens oyster shells and i recently bought some sand for them. do I mix them with their regualr feed of just pour some in a pile for them to eat as they will. CI

What a coincidence, I almost started a toad thread too.. :) Last week I walked out on my front sidewalk at night and what looked like a leaf suddenly hopped into the garden bed when I walked by! It was a big fat toad! I was so excited because he is the first toad I've seen in the yard after living here almost 5 years. I even put a large plant saucer down on the ground last year and fill it with water so the toads would access to water. (The birds drink from it sometimes too.) I think he might be living under the bulb and daylily foliage. Of course I had to run and grab the camera -

Just checked again and the birds have left the nest. Don't see them anywhere on the ground. Maybe they fledged already and are in a tree? re: How is your box mounted? It should be on a slick pole with a predator baffle. It's a Peterson box on a pole and has a predator cone on the pole. I have no idea how the snake got in there. Been out there for eight years and has produced over 40 BlueBirds.

When I was in my 20s and living in Wash. D.C., I spent a Christmas at a friend's mother's home in Bronxville, N.Y. I brought my cat along with me. Jane and I kept rolling our eyes because it was a very stuffy, proper atmosphere. We ate by candlelight and in the middle of dinner we heard the clatter of dishes. My cat had jumped up on the sideboard to taste the food. Jane and I laughed so hard. We laughed about that for another 15 years until Jane died of cancer.