Mystery Solved

OK, I admit; I spoil my chickens. I have fed them pricy mealworms since they were eensie chicks. They are so freakn' cute when in a feeding frensy. A month ago I went to the fridge to fetch the girls a nice wormy treat. Mealworms are stored in the cold to slow down their growth and keep them 'fresh', because that's what you want - 'fresh vermin. Anyhow, I dug around the fridge - no worms! I checked all the kitchen cabinets - no worms. Tore my car up one side, down the other - no flippin' worms!

Where was that tub-o-worms? Did they crawl away? I tore the house up and did that annoying thing where you re-visit and dig through the same place over and over. I kept getting the same damned results - no flippin' worms! Decided I must have left them on the counter at the Wild Bird store where I bought the nasty little creepies. Oh well; color me bummed.

Flash forward to today. Got home from work, paused at the back door. What did my eyes lit upon on a pile of garage clutter? A plastic wrapped BIG TUB O' WORMS! A month old big ole tub o worms... eeep...

I have dealt with meal worms since I was a po' chile in the Bronx, feeding my pet anole lizards and slider turtles. But enough with the history lessons, I now recall putting the worm tub down - just for a second - when unlocking the door into the house, only in the second, I forgot to pick the tub back up again. DUH! Enough browbeating myself. After finding the tub, my first thought: what the HELL happens to a tub o' worms, left for a month in a garage of wildly fluctuating temperatures? On opening the lid, would super-sized cycloptic black beetles leap up and EAT MY FACE. *shudders*

Went into the back yard and 'released the girls' from their chicken run. Screwing up my courage, I held my breath and opened the tub o' worms to find...

EFFING-GREAT, HUMONGOUS, FAT-ARSE
MEAL WORMS, all alive, alive-o
Worms, wriggling and writhing and looking in no way stressed - I'm talking mellow worms! As one might expect, the tub had loads of creepy shed skins. I poured out some of the 'survivors' for the girls - who having each laid an egg today deserved goodies. The hens went bonkers, predatory as feathery tigers, wolfing down the gigantic worms. Last I looked out the window, my poor little hens were lying around on their backs like lions after a kill (OK, maybe they weren't but I know they would have liked to lie on their backs if their tails didn't get in the way).

This unfortunate worm incident is not so unfortunate really. Now I know that 'Jumbo' mealworms are only ensie mealworms that sat around for a month. I decided quite a while back to stop buying worms and to just grow them for myself, and I guess now I have a shite-load of HUMONGOUS worms, now is as good a time as any, wouldn't you say?

Normal sized ensie mealworms