Is there such a thing as a grasshopper trap?

[farmerbrowne]

heck If you could catch a wack load, Id pay to ship them down here!!!! we have hardly any this year

 

[redpennies15]

Grasshopper season is at its peak in Texas. At night, I like to go out with a flashlight and pick the unsuspecting, sleeping grasshoppers off the Johnson grass stalks (easiest way to catch them, but they will catch on over time and jump at the slightest hint of a flashlight). Captured grasshoppers are then fed to chickens in the morning OR frozen for use as fishing bait at a later date.

BTW, I wouldn't ship grasshoppers. They are gross! Their self-defense "tobacco" smells terrible if you don't wash the jar you keep them in!

Warning! Grasshoppers in my neck of the woods have worms and will pass these worms on to your chickens! We learned this from a Nutrena workshop: you can feed pumpkin seeds to your chickens in the fall to deworm them. Easiest way is to buy a few pumpkins at Halloween and use the seeds after you make your Jack-o-Laterns.

 

[centrarchid]

If the worms are horse hair worms, ones you can see, then they will not parasitize chickens.

 

[redpennies15]

 

[farmerbrowne]

holy crap! Thems alot of grass hoppers!! I freeze mine first to kill anything on or in them

 

[farmerbrowne]

oh and the tobbacco juice isnt bad after they are frozen

 

[redpennies15]

This is only half a jar full. normally i catch 2-3 jars full at night, the chickens eat every last one and act like I should have more!

These definitely have long visible worms.

 

[farmerbrowne]

all the grasshoppers I caught last year didnt have worms on them. wonder if its in specific spots of the country

 

[centrarchid]

No, some years the horsehair are abundant others they are not. The cool thing is what they make the grasshoppers and crickets do before dying.

 

[vivaciouswoman]

Once you catch all those grasshoppers, how do you give them to the chickens so that they don't just hop away? We've got 11 girls, and I'm thinking I would shake up the jar a little bit to confuse them, but do any of you pros have any suggestions?

And what's this with tobacco juice...? Hmmmm. I might have to google that.