Chook Me!

Hundreds of dead earwigs in chicken coop?

I found hundreds of dead earwigs in my chicken coop (its wooden and fairly small, but there aren't any chickens in it) how could they have died?

Public Comments

1. Have you had a frost lately? If the temperatures dropped too low and the coop is at all drafty, they may have died of the cold. That's the only explanation I can think of.
2. Earwigs are tough insects and I can only think of 2 reasons for their deaths they either were suffocated or killed by insecticide spray. Here is something about their life history. LIFE HISTORY; The eggs are whitish and said to number about 24. The insects seem to moult 6 times and are fully grown by midsummer. They survive the winter and the eggs are laid in the winter or early spring and there are records of a habit very unusual among insects. The earwig is a good mother . She stands guard over her eggs ,and has even be found to collect them,if experimentally ,dispersed and to resume her station over them. She remains with the eggs until they hatch and lives on for some months afterwards.