Grub generator reboot

(mild gross factor warning for very sensitive – grubs)

My “new and improved” grub generator wasn’t working.  The original buckets were better.

YouTube instructionals notwithstanding, the grubs don’t walk up the vacuum hose.  They don’t negotiate the ridges very well.  What they do do, is crawl around that flat ridge near the top of the Rubbermaid, and they have no trouble crawling straight up the sides of the plastic.  They really make time too, it’s sort of amazing.  They’re on a mission.

So I bored a couple holes along that flat ridge on either side for them to fall out,

And put on a little tray to catch them.

My biggest “move” though, was physically moving the thing out of the edge of the woods, to right in the middle of things at the corner of the greenhouse.  The biggest downside is smell.  It’s not as bad as you might imagine (I don’t think), and the smell comes in phases (as do the grubs).  It smells the day before a “shipment” of grubs come, and doesn’t smell while they’re  productive.  It doesn’t smell, it smells…I can live with it. Smell and inherent grossness on one hand… vs. recycling, free chicken food, and high quality protein supplements for my birds – it’s a good trade.

Moving the box of death into the middle of everything is mostly so that the chickens use it.  And boy do they.  They are always around it, keen eyes out for any escaping grub. 

Little Pepper is a real addict. Always at the box.  She’s gonna be healthy.

Even in the pouring rain – I was out there slinging water – I saw the teens running over periodically to check for grubs.

Grubs teeming out into the tray.

Perchick partaking.  I removed the vacuum hose after the drilled holes proved effective.  Not quite there yet, but closer.  It’s an evolution.

And now, something cute:

Chicks (teens) cashed out in the heat.