eating mosquitoes

[cookinmom]

This is probably a dumb question, but if a mosquito bites me, or anybody else for that matter, and has blood in it, and a chicken eats it, will it do anything bad to the chicken?
And no, I don't mean turn it into a killer chicken that has a taste for human blood!!

 

[Wolfpacker]

I don't know about that, but when I'm in their run and the mosquitoes start swarming around my legs, my girls just pluck 'em right out of the air and gulp 'em right down. Haven't seen any fangs yet!

 

[silkiechicken]

I doubt it will do anything. They contain so little blood plus it's mixed in with itchy mosquito saliva.

Edit: There is enough blood in mosquitoes that even if you one mosquito bits multiple people. You can smash it and still blood type the people that were bitten from the blood that was sucked up.

 

[NJfarmer]

what about the west nile virus????

 

[silkhope]

I hope it doesn't hurt them, cause if I smack one on my leg one of the girls will come running and take it right off my hand...

 

[cookinmom]

Quote:
Chickens are immune to west nile virus, and also to encephalitis. (That's why they use them for test flocks; they make antibodies to the virus, so if the antibodies show up in their bloodstream, the people know they've been exposed.)
I guess this is just one of those things where it's like, "don't borrow trouble; there's enough real stuff to worry about without making up more!"