Oh, actually it’s possible the locusts disappearing was to do with starvation! Each locust has a limited number of jumps before it dies. Eating replenishes this but there wasn’t very good AI so it was way too easy for them to miss out on the feast despite being in the middle of it!
Thanks for pointing out that this looks like a bug, I will need to address it somehow to make it clearer or change it entirely.
And yeah, I definitely need to speed up the start, it’s just way too slow. Large groups of chickens is a fantastic idea, you’d have to be very large to survive in a cage with them!