Making Feed from Japanese Beetles

[Howard E]

Hmmmm.

Last year (2107), a neighbor and I attended the JB seminar at Lincoln U. Following that, we attempted a mass trapping program. It worked, but we couldn't find a use for all the beetles we caught. He had about 6 of the commercial traps and we were getting about 1/2 a 5 gallon bucket per day per trap. He estimated that over the course of the season, he caught at least 3 million beetles. I did about the same with the bag a bug traps. A chicken can only eat about 50 to 100 per day and then they are full. So consuming that many beetles fresh would take a lot of chickens!

So finding a way to save and process these would be a great benefit. The info in this thread is great stuff!

BTW, here are some of the trap mods we used. Starting with the simple Bag A Bug trap and how we modified it to catch more.



So the bugs crash into the panels and drop down into the funnel, down the pipe and into the bucket.

The pipe (3" PVC sewer pipe) can be longer......it can extend up into the tree canopy, and the bugs will still drop to the bottom.

The problem remains it only catches a small fraction. I tried some experiments with larger funnels.......have one I was going to use this year that was 2' in diameter to up the catch rate. Never got to use it.

A variation on this theme is to let the bugs drop into a small plastic wading pool with water, and bugs will float and chicks snag them that way. I've heard that ducks eat more than chickens, so this may work well for them. Assuming you have a few thousand ducks to feed!

Or hang the trap over the water and let them drop straight into the pond, lake or river. Problem still remains you may overwhelm the ability of the fish to eat them. They can only hold so many before they are full.

Would like to see this tried in a river where the fish population can swell to meet the need.

 

[Hopperkiller]

How did you trap them. Im contemplating building some sort of trap for june bugs. But they come out when chickens on roost. Intersting experiment you have there!!

 

[Dayrel]

Good luck! Just curious, how did you catch them?

That's the easy part. They sell pheromone-based traps that attract them from all around. They land on the slick plastic and fall down into the bag and can't get back out. Shocking how quickly you can fill the bag.

https://www.amazon.com/Spectracide-Japanese-Beetle-Trap2-56901/dp/B008JDRV98

 

[centrarchid]

It can get more gross. We are about to run a bunch through a meat grinder to see if we can make pellets. I am pretty sure it will smell enough to gag a maggot.

 

[Blue Tiger]

Soybean meal might have a purpose other than nutritional that might make effort practical. Pellets smelling like sillage which can be down right pleasant.


Sieves used to screen pellets made of Japanese Beetle biomass and heat treat treated soybean meal. Sizes are 0.157 inches, 0.0787 inches, and 0.0394 inches.

Sizes produced by sieving; top left largest, top right second largest, lower left second smallest, and lower right outright fines. All but fines in size range of available on market and they would be salvageable if wetted.

Better than 95% of mix run through meat grinder dried into the coarsest size that is most desired. Pink, red, and orange colors eye can see not showing in photograph below.

Blue Tiger = centrarchid

 

[Blue Tiger]

Image below depicts appearance of pelleted formulations where half (right) of soybean meal used in formulation above is replaced by wheat flour and all (left) of the soybean meal is replaced by wheat floor. Neither diet contains binding agent used in the first diet, yet pellets holding together well. Pellet integrity is improved in both formulations resulting in fewer fines that are potential waste. The diet on left appears darker with less chunky pieces where pellets would break, The coarse nature of soybean meal my need to be addressed by grinding. Fish are hammering both diets so chickens will almost certainly do same when they get the chance.

 

[Blue Tiger]

Analysis concerns above realized. Must work from fresh product. Mass trapping will be next round of concern.

 

[centrarchid]

Japanese Beetles are flying in a big way. A single trap captured enough beetles in 8 hours to fill a 5-gallon bucket. Still, too many beetles got to blue berry patch. Another problem is early captured beetles died in reservoir. Beetles need to be fresh when they go into feed mixing procedure.

All has the makings of being an even bigger beetle year than last and last was a record.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

I'm absolutely LOVING this thread! Brilliant work @centrarchid and thank you SO MUCH for sharing this with our community!

 

[h2oratt]

My friend just bought a freeze dryer machine. 2K but it works well more eggs, fruit and yogurt. It must. Be how they make the freeze dried meal worms.