Use of chickens in tilapia fish farming

* As to your algae question, synaptoman-- I don't think the chickens can eat it. I know that the algae that tends to grow in their waterers can be very toxic for them. Better leaving it to the earthworms, I imagine.

yeah, but then he could feed the WORMS back to the chickens, right?

Wouldn't that depend on whether the worms excreted the harmful chemicals?
You'd hate to feed the chickers a concentrated chemical cocktail packaged in a tasty worm...

ninjapoodles said:

This is a new one on me!

Chicken and Fish

Click to expand...

I'm really interested in starting aquaponics and I thought that was a great read. I am just starting my hens and I should have more eggs than I can eat I was thinking of using the eggs but poop works even better. My chickens eat so much grass, their grass is poopy any ways. I also plan on trying out dead veggie plants from the harvest above or my own food leftovers. I would worry about harvesting dry poop because it's so dusty and will not disperse properly into the water as food. Just sit on the water. Maybe some water in the coop tray to make a mud slop to put in the water? Don't know. Fish are gross any ways. So are chickens. They are all scavengers and naturally kind of ew.

While the idea of Tilapia feeding on chicken poo is rather gross... I have to realize that I am an American. We live in a society that in general is completely ignorant of the food chain. I work with a young woman who wouldn't cook chicken, b/c she didn't like seeing raw meat in those cellophane covered styrofoam packages. She'd have a melt down if any raw meat touched any surface in her kitchen. Freak out if she ran out of bleach wipes. (Um... in my house, bleach comes in a jug!) She wouldn't cook an egg b/c she didn't like the looks of the inside of an egg... and on and on the food phobia goes.

I love a good lobster or crab dinner. Those critters are the hoovers of the ocean, cleaning up all manner of filth. Same with clams, mussels, and oysters. So, how is a Tilapia that eats poo much different? Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. I used to enjoy Tilapia, and am sure that I will enjoy it again... after I have some mental processing time. Really, is eating a Tilapia that has filtered chicken poo through it's system much different than eating a salad that has grown with benefit of chicken poo compost?

And I LOVE the idea of Aquaponics: Think of the economic impact: If every home owner had a green house set up with an Aquaponic system, they could produce a LOT of their own food. Add chickens and perhaps a few rabbits to the mix, and I'm wondering if it might be possible to shed the notion that it's necessary for every household to have 2 full time incomes.

I posted the article and asked in a group that does aquaponics and the reply was:
"If you are going to do aquaponics , it would be better to use fish or no fish with chicken poop . The key to raising aquaponically is the bacteria . Nitrosomonas in the grow beds change the ammonia in the fish poop into nitrites and then nitrobacter changes the nitrates into nitrogen , which feed the plants in the system . Chicken manure contains a good deal of ammonia so if you have a good concentration of fish in a system , the addition of chicken manure will overload the bacteria's ability to deal with the added ammonia and you are going to have dead fish . A dual system like this one is unproven and these folks say they they are just starting it up . What they don't seem to realize is that tilapia don't eat shit . They may eat the algae that sunlight and extra nitrates generate but that can't be their only source of food."