Hopulence
Chirping
Hi all,
First post (non-reply) so bear with me here Just sharing an idea that I had, and researched, during the summer due to the annual infestation of Japanese Beetles that we get around my house. I set up 3 beetle catchers that I "harvested daily." By the end of the Summer I had 1/2 of a Quart Mason Jar full. Gross.
I like to give my girls a lot of scratch and corn during the brutal Massachusetts winters. Usually throw the treats in the run or coop to encourage scratching and rotating of the shavings (I use the deep litter method). But this year I throw in about 1/4 c of Japanese beetles every other day! Bonus being it helps them get through their molting so much quicker.
About once every other week I make a Japanese Beetle/mealworm/corn/BOSS suet cake using the animal fats that I saved up during the year. I hang that in one of those hanging bird suet cake feeders to also help with entertainment.
For those wondering - my process was to capture the beetles daily to lessen the amount of dead beetles in the traps. I would 1/2 fill a small bucket with a vinegar & water mixture and place the 3 bags in the bucket to submerge the beetles. This would kill some of them but also would clean up any poop or other matter I wouldn't want to feed the chickens. Also, once they were covered in this mixture, they wouldn't be able to fly away during the next step of transferring them to a sealed Mason Jar to put in the freezer immediately.
Thanks for reading, if you did. Just felt like sharing my method of upping my chicken's protein intake during the fall and turning lemons into lemonade!
First post (non-reply) so bear with me here Just sharing an idea that I had, and researched, during the summer due to the annual infestation of Japanese Beetles that we get around my house. I set up 3 beetle catchers that I "harvested daily." By the end of the Summer I had 1/2 of a Quart Mason Jar full. Gross.
I like to give my girls a lot of scratch and corn during the brutal Massachusetts winters. Usually throw the treats in the run or coop to encourage scratching and rotating of the shavings (I use the deep litter method). But this year I throw in about 1/4 c of Japanese beetles every other day! Bonus being it helps them get through their molting so much quicker.
About once every other week I make a Japanese Beetle/mealworm/corn/BOSS suet cake using the animal fats that I saved up during the year. I hang that in one of those hanging bird suet cake feeders to also help with entertainment.
For those wondering - my process was to capture the beetles daily to lessen the amount of dead beetles in the traps. I would 1/2 fill a small bucket with a vinegar & water mixture and place the 3 bags in the bucket to submerge the beetles. This would kill some of them but also would clean up any poop or other matter I wouldn't want to feed the chickens. Also, once they were covered in this mixture, they wouldn't be able to fly away during the next step of transferring them to a sealed Mason Jar to put in the freezer immediately.
Thanks for reading, if you did. Just felt like sharing my method of upping my chicken's protein intake during the fall and turning lemons into lemonade!
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