Supplemental Feeding of Japanese Beetles Using a Low-cost Bio-attractor

[centrarchid]

Trying to keep cost down. Current setup allows feeding several pens at a time on fresh beetle biom

 

[tigger19687]

What are you using as an Attractant ?
We only do organic methods here and my girls LOVE the beetles !

 

[centrarchid]

Attractant used is supplied by Great Lakes IPM. Not organic by my rules with respect to attractant or beetles owing to their points of origin.

 

[tigger19687]

hmmm, I would think that as long as you are not Adding it to your soil or such, and it is not actually getting ON the beetles.... it is like organic ? Because it is just an attractant ?

There seems to be many beetles this year as I don't remember seeing many at all the last couple years.

Keeping this idea in my mind.
TY

 

[centrarchid]

Organic people I have been talking to indicate the beetles are like honey bees, they ply their trade on property not yours that may or may not be certified organic.

 

[fishheadken]

We are doing some research using Japanese Beetles for use as a feed stuff, mainly for fish. The effort is resulting all sorts of other options where live beetles (versus a ground and dried meal) can be fed to fish and chickens. A couple problems popped up immediately. First, beetles fly best during the heat of the day when fish and chickens are less inclined to feed. Second, fish and chickens feed most readily in shade while the beetles avoid such areas. We have been doing all sorts of things trying to bring the too parties together for a picnic. Pheromones help a great deal, but they can be expensive. Traps on the market do not allow animals you are trying to feed to access the beetles without tearing something up. Another problem is attracted beetles may not stay long when simply using a pheromone lure as they seem to want something to perch on.

The weird science conducted on chicken pens and fish dock have shown us the way. Shortly a picture will be posted of a very low cost bio-attractor that gets the beetles down to where they can be consumed and may reduce the beetles inclination to drift to nearby vegetation where they cause damage yet held in area by the pheromone.[/QUOTE

 

[fishheadken]

Some may say I am as I answer in this case I choose to state those are Japanese beetles which without any human changing their life patterns they would be born , live & die somewhere in Japan. Common sense tells me leave them where they are at , what I would do should have little to nothing to do with your plans. I realize some places in our country u may have to help your flock by such methods. I am lucky in Florida & 1 1/3 acre fenced in , I do a lot of gardening plus we have bugs,worms,frogs etc. galore in the swamp so all they gotta do is go get um.

 

[centrarchid]

Device above may be able to pay for itself. Lure that last most of season costs about $4.25. It brings well over 100 lbs beetles that can actually be trapped and much more the chickens can glean from foliage and pen walls around traps. Quantifying this still a problem.

 

[centrarchid]

My original lure is loosing it's juice. I brought more from the expended traps used in trials. Beetle flow immediately picked up. Many beetles are caught when they land on chicken wire sides of pen. Birds outside pen gleaning beetles off the ragweed. Characteristics of vegetation can be really important, but will visit that next year.

We left the spent lures in the truck this morning while giving a tour to the USDA Ag Discovery kids. Truck windows were open. Result was almost like a swarm of bees. The kids were grossed out while my son said "that is just my dad's truck and it is like that all the time".

 

[centrarchid]

We are getting some interesting by-catch the chickens eat just as readily as the Japanese Beetles. The June Beetles are also swarming where you can see a thousand or so spread out over a an acre or so of ground. Extremely abundant. We used play with them as toys tying horse hair to their leg like a leash to have them fly around. Very low cost toy.

June Beetles that are several times larger and require some processing before being choked down.

Three color variants. More than one species?

They get jiggy with it after brief exposure to CO2 gas.