Bugs in my chicken feed

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Enchanted Sunrise Farms

Enchanted Sunrise Farms

Crowing
12 Years
Apr 26, 2007
4,255
64
274
Fair Oaks, California
i keep my feed in rubbermaid containers, and tonight when i opened one of them open to fill up some feeders, i saw some bugs. i have never seen this type of bug before. It has a hard body and moves slow. They were not in the feed, but hanging around the top. Has anyone seen this before? And, perhaps a rubbermaid container is not the best thing to keep the feed in. Would love advice on the best thing to use to store feed. Thanks!

Here are the bugs:
bugs.jpg
 
They look like beetles - like the full grown adult version of meal worms. If you have the adults, there are probably lots of larvae in the feed.

Personally, as long as the feed isn't moldy or smelling bad, I'd feed it, beetles and all. Chickens will think you have some special treat food for them.

Of course, I'm no expert, so if I'm totally off base here that the food is OK to feed, chime in!

Susan
 
I would toss the feed. You don't know if the beetles are carrying any bacteria, disease, etc. The fine print on most feed bags say to not feed if the feed is moldy or has bugs in it.

Of course, the chickens would probably go crazy for them anyway...
 
Interesting, those are adult mealworms? i bought this grower feed about 5 days ago. i'm not seeing them in the layer feed i bought at the same time, but that is kept in a separate container.

i will toss it tomorrow. You know, i get my feed and straw from two different stores. The store i got this from has okay stuff. But the other store, their straw is really nice, and their feed sacks always look fresh and clean. Guess i will only buy from the good store from now on.

Thanks for looking and offering the advice. So, if i round up those bettles and keep them in a jar, will they make little mealworms for me?
 
Chickens eat bugs all the time. If it worries you, put several sticks of spearmint or double mint gum in the bin. That is what we do to keep flour and pasta weevil free. It seems to work for us; I don't see why it won't work with chicken feed.

I am not sure if it will work with an already active infestation.

Freezing will kill weevils also. Then just sift out their little frozen bodies. I keep the flour and pancake mix at our summer home in the freezer over the winter. But that is mostly so that it doesn't attract mice.

Rufus
 
Yep, they look like mealworm beetles to me.

I had anoles for a while (caught them out of the yard - perfect pets because I had no qualms about releasing them right back into the yard)

Anyway - we fed mealworms and they ended up escaping the food dish and began multiplying in the bark litter we used in the cage. Apparently, they live quite happily on the litter, because even after the anoles had been released, they continued to live on in the cage. Got to be like a little scientific experiment for me - and I didn't feel right either just killing them nor letting them go.

Anyway, they looked just like those beetles in your pic.

Put a few of them in a small container with some rolled oats and wait a while.

Down side is they may not be very large mealworms.

Susan
 
I'd return the feed too. I opened a bag of horse feed once to find bugs in it. For there to be that much development I'd think the bug were in the feed when you got it.
 
Nothing wrong with using a tub like that for food storage. Just use some DE on the feed next time you store it and you will not get bugs. At this point I would return the feeed though.
 
I usually find thoes kinds of bugs in the scratch and since I scatter the scratch in the pen I'm not too worried about it, but I haven't found any in the layer feed though.
 

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