Japanese Beetles...yummy!

[icthus]

I got a Japanese beetle trap and I get about a third of a quart of beetles every day. The chickens love them. I learned to wait until morning to feed previous days catch. If you don't, half of them will fly away when you dump them out. The next morning they are very compliant.

 

[JennsPeeps]

for the chickens

for me yuck!

 

[KrisRose]

Never though of a trap for the jap beetles!!! Just caught them by hand. Looks like a trip to Home Depot.

 

[JennsPeeps]

Don't buy anything!!

Hang a light over an open bucket of water overnight. In the morning you'll have all kinds of bugs the the chickens.

Not sure about water amounts.

 

[Portia]

My flock loves a japanese beetle snack every night before bed. I had a bunch of traps from last summers flourish of beetles (one reason we now have chickens), so I spaced them around our open acre. At night the chickens follow me from trap to trap. I dump the bag into a bowl of water, making sure there is no avenue for escape; stir them in to assure they are all inundated and let the chickens chow down. They get 1/2-1 cup from each trap each night, and I have, um 8 traps out. It's become a nightly ritual. At least my roses are blooming this year, the chickens eat the beetles right off the blooms.

 

[ridgrats]

A few years ago I had one attached outside my caged birds. I did away with the catch bag underneath, attached a funnel which fed into a piece of copper tubing big enough for the beetle to fall through freely and then curved the copper tube into the cage where the beetle would fall into a cup of water and be held until the birds got it. the copper was only about a foot long. It only took a couple of days for the birds to learn the sound of a beetle coming down the pipe and from then on it was a rare occasion when a beetle actually made it to the water. There was usually a beak waiting for it to pop out the tube! Sure cut down on feed consumption.

Rodney

 

[muddler6]

Quote:
Just so you know I am borrowing your idea!!!! That is awesome. I was just going to post an ad on here and see if it was safe to feed them to the chickens after catching them in the traps, well I have my answer!!!
Thanks

 

[muddler6]

Just to make sure I get this right, it will not effect their eggs, and it is safe to eat the eggs after giving them the beetles, right?

 

[SterlingAcres]

I never thought to catch these darn things, I've got 'Japanese Beetle Bugs' (says my son) everywhere here. Hope they'll be around in a few weeks

 

[punkin]

I was really looking forward to treating my chickens to some japanese beatles in their run. Except for some strange reason, we don't have any this year. Oh well, I did put up some corn yesterday and I saved all the worms just for them! I will admit that I was disappointed if an ear didn't have a worm. Is that crazy or what?