Show Off Your American Gamefowl and Chat Thread!!!

[Texicano]

The bees were out in full force today.
Swarming on this tree and 2 pear trees.

 

[centrarchid]

Bees are working tops of maples and other species in a big way. I will be chasing swarms in just over a month.

 

[B123]

So what's the word on bees? Hives still dying or disappearing? I know there's experts here

Mites still seem to be the biggest culprit with no easy solution in sight.

 

[1cock2hens]

Bees are getting better.. they are still suffering colony collapse disorder but not at the same rate, there numbers are coming back

 

[doubleleft]

Big V Super Scratch, I feed this to all of my free range and young ones. It has everything my maintenance feed has but the pellets.
View attachment 1289715

Nice looking feed .... what brand is this? Is that milo i see? do you have a pic of ingredients?
Sorry to be so much trouble Flypen

 

[doubleleft]

separated from pen mates...bully
good candidate for single mating
View attachment 1289781 View attachment 1289782

Good Job Shubin (i like your pens)

 

[doubleleft]

Japanese Beetles ground with wheat or soybean meal, a little oil, and vitamin premix. Protein levels are way up there but not measured them yet. Will send samples out next week to have them analized. Birds eat the dickens out of it.

Now that's a quality protein the opposite of soybean

 

[flypen]

Nice looking feed .... what brand is this? Is that milo i see? do you have a pic of ingredients?
Sorry to be so much trouble Flypen

Big V feeds makes it, I'll see if any of the bags has a tag on it.

 

[B123]

Now that's a quality protein the opposite of soybean

I was curious so did a quick Google search. Fresh insects looked to be about 21% protein and dried seemed to be in the low to mid 50's. Centra, what is the advantage of beetles as opposed to some other protein source that is more cost effective?

 

[centrarchid]

I was curious so did a quick Google search. Fresh insects looked to be about 21% protein and dried seemed to be in the low to mid 50's. Centra, what is the advantage of beetles as opposed to some other protein source that is more cost effective?

More cost effective? Cost of Japanese beetles collected in mass for pest management has not been worked out. The beetle harvest is likely to occur whether used as a feedstuff or not and most is be used for composting which you would not deal with protein sources used to make most feeds. Processing / milling / storage cost are going to be the issue impacting cost and starting to look at that now. For some this is something that can be done on sight. Last year here in Missouri is was easy to collect hundreds of pounds of beetles. We do not know where protein level will be on these guys. The chitin may make for something that is more realistic for birds to process. My birds do not normally eat a lot of fish or soybean meal as a protein source.