Insects as feed for poultry

[Sally PB]

When it's Japanese Beetle season (July-August here), I go out nearly every day and catch what I can for the chickens. JBs are hell on a lot of plants around here, and I'm doing my best to eradicate them. (Ha-ha)

They are very simple to catch. Their defense is to let go and drop. I take a wide mouthed container with about an inch of water in the bottom. Put it under where they JBs are, tap the the plant, and they drop into the container.

After I make my rounds, I dump them in a shallow pan in the chicken run with an inch or so of water in it.

My chickens know what it means when I say, "Bug snack!"

 

[Lizzy733]

My sister raises Dubia roaches for her reptiles and gave me a mini-colony last summer. My chickens loved them and came running when I said "Bug!" But I personally wouldn't bother with raising them year-round.

The chickens are, of course, welcome to all the bugs they can find in their run (HPAI permitting them to go out there, of course), and I'll bring them bugs from the garden if I can.

(BTW, Dubias thrive and breed on a diet of All-Flock feed with watermelon or canteloupe rinds for moisture).

Wish we had dubais here. Closest is white steakers and containment for them sounds like a nightmare, so I've given them a pass.

 

[Sally PB]

Oh, I forgot to add... When it was Japanese Beetle season last summer, I saw a noticeable decrease in how much regular feed my chickens ate. No idea about the quality of the protein of JBs, or other nutrients, but the chickens sure liked them. They got lots of garden weeds and scraps then too. Garden season is good eating time for people and chickens.

 

[Chikenux]

Not all proteins have the same quality, Plant based protein are not absorbed as readily as animal/insect protein.

true

 

[629864]

We have a problem with japanese beetles decimating our veggie crops. So, this year, I'm going with beetle traps that use scented lures and no poison. I'll rotate bags each day, freeze a full bag, then feed the frozen beetles to the chickens before swapping out the bag again. I'll update here with results: will the chickens love them or turn their noses up at them?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

true

Plants also have a different amino acid profile animals/meat based protein.

 

[Dandichook]

[...]

Raising insects can be a lot of work and it almost makes insect protein and fat too expensive to feed chickens. Raising fish to feed chickens is more cost effective.

Not to derail the thread, but can you elaborate on raising fish to feed chickens? Are we talking minnows fed whole (live? Pre-killed?) or bigger fish made into a meal of some kind? I've never heard of anyone doing this!

Loving all the info on insects here as well!

Question re: BSFL. I've heard people mention they're high enough in fat they should be fed as treats only, but I have also seen places claim they have a similar nutrition profile to fish meal, possibly making them a good replacement for it in animal feed. Is there any reason you couldn't just dry them, grind them, and add them in appropriate portions to a lower protein feed to adjust the protein content?

 

[Lizzy733]

Not to derail the thread, but can you elaborate on raising fish to feed chickens? Are we talking minnows fed whole (live? Pre-killed?) or bigger fish made into a meal of some kind? I've never heard of anyone doing this!

Loving all the info on insects here as well!

Question re: BSFL. I've heard people mention they're high enough in fat they should be fed as treats only, but I have also seen places claim they have a similar nutrition profile to fish meal, possibly making them a good replacement for it in animal feed. Is there any reason you couldn't just dry them, grind them, and add them in appropriate portions to a lower protein feed to adjust the protein content?

They are fatty, but not as fat as mealworms.

All my bug research has been geared towards reptile nutrition, but as far as my beardie goes, we've had no issues offering it as a staple.

If you are looking for cheap protein specifically as a feed additive or supplement, soybean meal or cat food is the way to go. With the latter, I'm not sure the long-term effects, but we used it constantly at our avian rescue center for supplementing songbirds and insectapro (which is actually made of lamb meal) for more sensitive insectavores. Frozen chicks and mice did the raptors well and I did think of getting into breeding pinkies when I still had my water dragon. You'd get quite a lot outta one breeding pair of mice. I know my hens love a good field mouse.

Soybean meal is a bit more acceptable as a means to raise protein as a straight up additive. Looked into this for my gamebirds as their feed here is rubbish, but could only find it in larger volumes than I'd go through.

With fish, I've offered dried flaked salmon (the cat\dog treat kind) as a protein booster for heavy breed\slow feathering chicks to help with their development and it was well received.

 

[raingarden]

Not to derail the thread, but can you elaborate on raising fish to feed chickens? Are we talking minnows fed whole (live? Pre-killed?) or bigger fish made into a meal of some kind? I've never heard of anyone doing this!

All of the above, but it is usually easier and cheaper to grow a lot of small fish than few large fish.

We used to have a fancy goldfish and koi farm. Every fish is different, but only the best bring enough money to be worth keeping and selling. All the rest are culled. Most are culled at an early age but some might not show a defect until they are larger. So anyway, we always had a lot of fish to dispose of. The yardbirds got most of them.

For a while we were making our own pelleted food. Fish were ground and frozen to accumulate enough for a batch then cooked with flour, grains and vegetables. This gelatinized mash was slightly cooled and a vitamin and mineral premix added. It was then pushed through the die holes of a meat grinder and the extruded ribbons were sun dried and crushed to make a shelf-stable fish food.

 

[Broxi]

We used to have a couple bearded dragons and two Dubia colonies to feed them. The chickens LOVED the dubia, but I hated having the colonies in the house. We wound up rehoming the bearded dragons along with their enclosures and dubia colonies to someone already in the hobby, due to my boy not being able to care for them because of health. So no more dubia breeding at my house. Now I just buy the BSFL dried chicken treats but only feed them occasionally due to the cost. They free range my backyard though and I don't have nearly the tick problem now than we did pre-chickens.

Dubia are extremely easy to breed in totes and are better nutrition compared to crickets if someone is interested in starting them. You can just order some feeders from ebay and feed the chicken feed and scraps. You can learn all about raising dubia roaches on youtube.