Too many bugs?

[lolaeve45]

I'm trying to teach my four, 1 month old chickens to come when I call them by giving them bugs. I give them crickets, mealworms, and waxworms (grub like creatures high in fat). They are free ranging around my backyard so I'm sure they find a lot of bugs by themselves as well.
Is too much bug protein bad for them? I've had ducks before and made the mistake of feeding them too many mealworms and a few got angel wing, which i know is from excess protein... can something similar happen to chickens? Or can they get sick? I probably fed them around 20 crickets and some meal/wax worms between the four throughout the day...

 

[centrarchid]

When protein is coming from insects, especially when free-range vegetable fair is also available I doubt you will be able to cause negative health impacts by supplementing with what you are providing. My birds when free-ranging on top quality forages target insects before anything else and with chicks the diet can be almost exclusively insects. Such fed chicks I can not match when feeding even the best formulated diets.

 

[ELauraD]

I'm trying to teach my four, 1 month old chickens to come when I call them by giving them bugs. I give them crickets, mealworms, and waxworms (grub like creatures high in fat). They are free ranging around my backyard so I'm sure they find a lot of bugs by themselves as well.
Is too much bug protein bad for them? I've had ducks before and made the mistake of feeding them too many mealworms and a few got angel wing, which i know is from excess protein... can something similar happen to chickens? Or can they get sick? I probably fed them around 20 crickets and some meal/wax worms between the four throughout the day...

What is "Angel Wing"? Can this happen to chickens, chicks? We've been giving our chicks dried meal worms every night this week -they love them so much and it is so fun to watch their antics. Now I am concerned...

 

[centrarchid]

Nutritional requirments of gooslings and chicks are different. Gooslings natural consumes large amounts of vegetable matter almost from gitgo while chicks eat largely insects for the first month or so before swithing to increasingly plant based fare. Only concern I would have is the product being fed is dried, not live so some of the vitamins maybe degraded. Make it so dried mealworms repressent less than 25% total intake and all should be well.

 

[lolaeve45]

Oh, the mealworms are alive!

 

[lolaeve45]

That was my same concern... angel wing is when the wings start to grow too fast I think? The bottom part of the wing sticks out from the body... it doesn't hurt the duck, but it looks ugly. You can actually fix it if you catch it when it first starts to happen by taping them in the right position against the body or cutting the foot off pantyhose and putting it around the duck's middle and wings for a week or two..

But now that I think about it, I've never seen a chicken with this problem...