Will Chickens Eat Japanese Beetles?

[goldtopper]

Gosh I hope so. Last summer I used one of those pheromone traps where they fly into a hanging bag, and no kidding- I got 100+ a day for weeks. They covered my marigolds and zinnias. If they are ok to eat, I'll save quite a bit on feed this year!

 

[AquaEyes]

Quote:
http://www.fredsfinefowl.com/japanesebeetles.html

 

[Ridgerunner]

Mine eat them, but they get tired of them very quickly. I was getting a double handful or more a day off a plum tree last year. I'd put them in the run with the chickens. They ate a few but not many.

I started leaving the beetles in the bucket with a little dish washiing liquid in the water overnight so they would drown, and dumped them on the compost heap. My chickens would eat a few of them, but not many.

Hope yours do better than mine. Good luck!

 

[patman75]

Mine like them. I plan to rig a beetle trap with a long flexible metal tube at the bottom that goes inside the chicken run. When the beetle fly though the tube it will be like ringing the dinner bell with a bunch of chickens on the other end to see what comes out.

 

[aggie9296]

mine have not eaten the Japanese beetles, love bugs, or crazy looking orange bug out of the garden. they have eaten mole crickets, any beetle, fire ants, carpenter ants, cinch bugs. if the bug is brightly colored, mine won't touch it.

 

[HLAC]

Mine eat them and haven't gotten tired of them.

They seem to make a difference in the population of the beetles too. At one point we had hundreds of thousands of the beetles, now we just get thousands of them. It's been a couple of years since my trees have been completely defoliated.

 

[al6517]

Quote:
What kind of Pheromone is used in trapping Jap bettles ??.