Raising feeder insects

[Kassaundra]

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Hope they aren't disapearing like the bees!

I sooooooo love the idea of turning bird poop into a great protien source.

I've never fed mine bird droppings. (Despite the lack of adults, I still have larvae) They mostly eat wet feed that my messy and wasteful duck leaves behind, and the feed that gets wet during rainstorms. Make sure you get a good drainage system setup, if you don't you will have a decrease in population and it will smell REEK. (I'm talking from personal experience here!)

I had planned on kitchen scraps, but some site I was recently on stated they could live entirely off of chicken poop, but not cow or horse.

 

[Delmar]

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I love that goal! I am in the process of starting a compost pile to grow "red wiggler" worms. I'm thinking of putting a mini greenhouse over it in the winter so I can harvest worms year round, without doing it in the house. Not sure if I'll get around to it, but I'm thinking about it.

 

[Kassaundra]

Score one for being to busy to get everything done on schedule!!!!! (or maybe just plain old procrastination) I had not got to get my BSF larva bucket done yet, and came across a non working shop vac. Wooooo Hoooooo so I'm going to try and repurpose it for my jerry rigged "biopod" I will post some pics when it is complete.

 

[Delmar]

I have been considering a way of drawing insects into the chicken run. Sort of a bug feeder, inside the run. I was thinking of providing them with some sort of syrup in a container that the bugs could get in and out of, but the chickens couldn't eat from. Then as the bugs come and go the chickens have a treat!

 

[Kassaundra]

That is a very interesting idea. Not growing/harvesting, just attracting.

 

[Delmar]

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The down side is, it would really only work in warm weather, but I do believe it would work well.

 

[Kassaundra]

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The down side is, it would really only work in warm weather, but I do believe it would work well.

A finch feeder would have small enough holes the chickens couldn't get to the inside, but syrup wouldn't work, you would need a more solid attractant. Wonder if a sweet attractant or meaty one would attract the most chicken treats? Do you think the ants would over run either one (meaty or sweet)?

 

[Erica]

What a great thread. I'm not into sprays, so our kitchen is starting to be overrun by little cockroaches.

I trap them using jars with a little vegetable oil smeared under the inside rim, but for some reason I didn't think of using them as chicken food! What a great idea. Thanks so much for this thread.

Incidentally, if ever you want to argue the case with an industry mouthpiece, home grown protein is better than commercial protein. Commercial feeds add artificial methionine (an essential amino acid and a building block of protein) made from petrochemicals. They do this because it's a cheap way of enriching a soy-wheat diet, but it has health costs in both chickens and arguably in people as well.

You can see my blog if you want details and citations.

Apologies for that little soap box. It's just that when well-intentioned people call on us to repay industrial food producers, I want to ask who's going to repay us for our health?

 

[Delmar]

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I think it would. Unless you are saying the smell wouldn't be strong enough, but I know that bees can smell an open coke on a picnic table. Syrup, honey or sugar can become any constancy you want it to be, from liquid to fudge to rock candy.

 

[Kassaundra]

I was meaning in a finch feeder. It would work in the open soda bottle you mentioned. But I still wonder about the ant thing, do chickens eat ants? If so I'm thinking you may have single handedly solved my whole ant problem!!!!!

Oh and of course if it were thickened it would work in the finch feeder.