For a while I’ve been blaming grasshoppers for the half eaten figs I’m finding on the tree but I haven’t seen many grasshoppers munching on the fig tree and I’m out there a dozen times a day looking for ripe figs. This morning I think I may have found the culprits.
First, I heard a noise and looked and there was a chicken flying downward from the fig tree and I couldn’t quite figure that out til I saw another one hopping from lower branches to higher branches to get the figs.
Fig Thief
I couldn’t get a picture of them in mid-air but you can see her feet are off the ground. Up she goes . . to get my beloved figs.
Fig Thief
The are quite diligent about searching for the figs, which tells me this is not their first trip to the fig tree. Vince gets aggravated with me for letting them out of the run because they go in his shop and poop; they poop on the porch; they poop on the new driveway . . chickens poop everywhere. I tell him . . that’s what chickens do! But he’d rather me leave them in their runs but I think they need a little freedom . . but now that they’re challenging me for the figs, they may be giving up their freedom and go back to living inside the fenced run!
No . . I’ll keep letting them out but I’ll have to start picking the figs sooner rather than leaving them on the vine to get completely ripe.
Susan says
I would never have suspected the chickens!
Angie says
I think I would be tempted to keep the Fig thieves in their pens during harvest season. They don’t look too deprived! LOL!
Joyce says
It’s a good thing you really like your chickens… 🙂
Claudia says
We’ve decided that the birds and squirrels get ours. We have a small tree and it had a bunch that were almost ready to pick, two days later, completely gone.
Chris B says
Figs don’t ripen off the tree. You might be disappointed at how they taste. How about having Vince fashion something to keep them from getting up into the tree?
Judy Laquidara says
We’ve been leaving them on the tree til they’re really a bit over ripe and very sweet. There’s a several day window in which we can pick them. I got them early this morning before the chickens thought about them but I saw them up in the middle of the tree this afternoon . . searching!