Japaneese beetles as food for poultry

[centrarchid]

Anyone attempt to feed Japanees beetles to chickens or turkeys? We will be collecting about 10,000 twice weekly.

 

[Greyfox Farm]

A good friend of mine regularly gathers the japense beetles from her garden and gives these to her girls (RIR's and BR's), and they LOVE them. Funny thing is they only like live and moving ones; kill them and the birds just look sort of mildly interested but then ignore them. Odd.

 

[centrarchid]

A good friend of mine regularly gathers the japense beetles from her garden and gives these to her girls (RIR's and BR's), and they LOVE them. Funny thing is they only like live and moving ones; kill them and the birds just look sort of mildly interested but then ignore them. Odd.

Thanks, we will take this into consideration. Any notes on how taste of meat or eggs might be effected? We will also be freezing or drying and possibly grinding for addition to mash or pellets.

 

[ignatz]

Mine will eat them if they can see/find them. As far as I can tell, they act like it's a treat. Some of the hens will follow me into the patches of johnson grass I allow to grow tall specifically to attract the beetles and I can almost point them out to the birds and they'll go to town.

I've not tasted anything wrong with the birds or the eggs. *Nothing* I've fed them or that they'cve eaten on their own has made any bad/strange taste in the bird or the eggs.