Any such thing as too many black soldier fly larvae

[TaylorGlade]

I know that chickens are not supposed to eat more than 10% of their diet in treats. What is considered a treat? If a chicken free ranges, it eats lots of bugs. Is that a treat? Is there a difference between the bugs that chickens eat free-ranging, and black soldier fly larva? I guess what is considered a treat? Fruits and vegetables? Or anything outside of their commercial feed? If it's anything outside of their commercial feed, how do you limit a free-ranging chicken from the only having 10%

 

[jpalmatier83]

I guess I don’t have fantastic answers to your question.

Assuming it’s a lot like people, if you have a lot of physical activity (free ranging all day), you can afford a bit more fat (bugs) in your diet.

If your trapped behind a desk (in a small run) all day, maybe limit caloric intake and balance your intake a bit more.

If chickens are predominantly free ranging, bugs aren’t treats. It’s their primary source of caloric intake. If they’re cooped most of the time, you’re giving them treats.

To a certain degree, you need to watch your chickens and decide if you’re over treating them or supplementing a free range diet.

 

[Morrigan]

The way I look at it is this. If you are feeding a quality commercial feed, they are fine getting a few extra things -- vegetables, fruit, seeds, mealworms, whatever. -- as long as the amounts given are fairly minimal (i.e. less than 10%). You don't have to worry too much about unbalancing their diets, because you are not giving enough to make a big difference.

Once you go over minimal amounts, you need to be more aware of making sure that what you are supplementing their diet with is, itself, nutritionally well balanced. Because, IMO, chickens have good instincts, given a free range situation, they will do a good job in selecting a variety of foods and balancing their nutritional needs. They will also have to work and exercise to find those bugs and other goodies, so they are in less danger of getting overweight.

If you can't free range your chickens, there is nothing wrong, in my book, with trying to supplement their diets with fresh foods, including bugs. Just be mindful of offering a variety of nutritionally diverse items . You will have to do some research to figure that out and make sure your chickens are getting the nutrition they need.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Anything not part of a nutritionally complete, balanced diet is a "treat". It doesn't matter how "good" for your chicken it might be in isolation, there is no ingredient on the planet which is nutritionally complete to meeting a chicken's needs. Meaning anything you give is unbalancing. The 10% thing is a useful guideline, nothing more.

BSFL are an interesting ingredient. If you buy them in dried form, with most of the moisture removed, they are a decent protein source with a good amino acid profile, but they are also a HUGE fat source. The benefits of slightly higher protein are dwarfed by the negatives of greatly increased fat. Nutrient dense ingredients like that don't take much to imbalance a bird's diet. OTOH, if you raise them yourself (I've tried, also in the FL Panhandle, it seemed to be too hot in my set up, couldn't sustain a colony), then there's a lot more water in them, making them less nutritionally dense, Meaning an equal weight of them is less imbalancing. Still not great, but can be useful as part of a larger, and more varied, feed management system.

The key is BALANCE. Don't focus on any one thing, that's missing the forest for a single tree. You don't know how to make a nutritionally complete chicken feed - if you did, you wouldn't be asking this question. So don't focus on breaking a nutritionally complete feed by asking how much high expense treat you can offer your chickens. Moderation and variety are the legs upon which balance stands.

To your last question, I free range my birds on many acres. You can see my culling project here. and my work on my free range pasture, here. How do I do it??? First, I offer a nutritionally high quality feed - high in things that are more difficult to find in a typical pasture. Then I limit their feeding. I offer food once a day, and I monitor their consumption, adjusting quantity based on how quickly they eat everything each day, because the value of the pasture varies seasonally. The rest of the day, the chickens graze a diverse pasture of low nutritional density food - they have options, they (largely) self balance. How do I make sure? I look.

I've done a bunch of reading, I understand what I'm doing, and I keep reading. But relying as I am on nature, which all its joys and sorrows, there's a big learn (and keep learning) by doing component to it as well. See my signature - "finding success by learning from failure". I'm continuing to mess with my pasture, ensuring I have a blend of things available for them to eat at all times (which attracts a variety of insects, of course - but I find I don't have as many insects as one might think), and I continue to experiment each year with adding new things to see how they do.

Hope that helps at least a little bit. You don't have to do as I do - and I hope to get better at what I'm doing - so you can certainly do it better. Got to start somewhere, right? Good luck on your chicken keeping journey.

 

[TaylorGlade]

Thanks everyone. My chickens have a fairly large run, so I do not actually free range them. We have way too many predators and neighbors.

But we were thinking of setting up a bsf farm - good to know that it may be too hot. I didn't realize they were so much higher in fat though.

I understand that 10% is the guideline (not a rule) but I need to start somewhere. And no - I don't know how to make a chicken feed. I have done a bit of reading and it seems daunting.

But that does answer my question - bsf are definitely a treat and should not be given as more than that. Oddly, I cut up strawberries today and they didn't eat them all.

 

[jpalmatier83]

IDK, I feel like I may be missing the point.

For hundreds of years, jungle fowl survived eating a scavenged diet.

And recently, many birds survived eating droppings from cattle feed and what they could scrape up.

Was it optimal? Probably not. Did they survive and continue to lay? Yes.

I guess, I do the best by my birds, and keep my eyes open. Birds will self regular calcium by eating oyster shell or not. I think they and I can both work together to make sure they don’t starve or turn into Cornish x’s!!!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thanks everyone. My chickens have a fairly large run, so I do not actually free range them. We have way too many predators and neighbors.

But we were thinking of setting up a bsf farm - good to know that it may be too hot. I didn't realize they were so much higher in fat though.

I understand that 10% is the guideline (not a rule) but I need to start somewhere. And no - I don't know how to make a chicken feed. I have done a bit of reading and it seems daunting.

But that does answer my question - bsf are definitely a treat and should not be given as more than that. Oddly, I cut up strawberries today and they didn't eat them all.

THAT is an excellent start. Strawberries are mostly water, good sources of vitamin C and magnesium, not a heck of a lot else.. If your chickens were given nothing but strawberry plants to eat, that would be a problem - the chickens would eat to imbalance, because they had no choice. Tommorow or the next day, you might offer some veggies (or peels), or a legume, or a near grain, or a grain, or a pulse. Variety. That will also help ensure that what might be imbalanced on one day averages out over time.

Or, you could not treat them at all. It isn't necessary, but it is satisfying.

and I should have done more research for my BSFL farm. Step one, don't use a black barrel (all I had). More shade would have helped too. possibly I started too small, as well (not enoiugh volume to moderate temperature changes? I've given it a lot of thought, but haven't come up with any satisfying answers.

Whatever you decide, I wish you every fortune in it.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

IDK, I feel like I may be missing the point.

For hundreds of years, jungle fowl survived eating a scavenged diet.

And recently, many birds survived eating droppings from cattle feed and what they could scrape up.

Was it optimal? Probably not. Did they survive and continue to lay? Yes.

I guess, I do the best by my birds, and keep my eyes open. Birds will self regular calcium by eating oyster shell or not. I think they and I can both work together to make sure they don’t starve or turn into Cornish x’s!!!

Here's your high level answer.

For thousands of years, as humans domesticated what has become the modern chicken, they (like we) scavenged a varied diet . Those birds were generally smaller, slower growing, and MUCH less productive than their modern equivalent. They roamed larger areas than people with enclosed backyard runs can provide, those areas were not monocultures of perfectly manicured bermuda grass, or zoysia, or St. Augustine, or whatever, and there was good chance they could also scaventge missed/slopped/spilled feed for other animals.

For many of us, particularly those with vanity flocks in their suburban or urban back yard, the ONLY thing our chickens eat is what we, their owners, provide them, and the only thing they produce is eggs - if we want them to be healthy and produce as many eggs as they are capable off - that means a quality, nutritionally complete feed.

For some lucky few of us, we can blend the old world with the new - quality feed to provide a solid base to their diet, and a large and varied pasture on which they can graze to round out their daily intake. Studies show that, given the choice of a WIDE variety of ingredients, chicknes are actually pretty good at balancing their own diet. The problems arise when they either don't have that wide variety, or the wide variety is nevertheless missing key nutritional components. Examples - chickens essently can't use phytate (that is, plant based-) phosphorus, so an all plant diet virtually guarantees phosphorus deficiency related problems. Chickens need more methionine than you can get in a plant based diet, because plants are poor source of that key amino acid. Same with B12. That means those who rely on free ranging to meet the majority of their birds daily intake are hoping and praying for adequate amounts of insect proteins - and the right insect proteins - to make up for what plants lack. Last century, some of those needs would be met ny offering meat scraps (its a term of art, not quite what you think it is), or offering milk (or whey) for them to drink. But of course, most of us don't have milk cows and produce out own cheese, leaving the whey as a waste product...

Its the difference between surviving and thriving.

 

[TaylorGlade]

THAT is an excellent start. Strawberries are mostly water, good sources of vitamin C and magnesium, not a heck of a lot else.. If your chickens were given nothing but strawberry plants to eat, that would be a problem - the chickens would eat to imbalance, because they had no choice. Tommorow or the next day, you might offer some veggies (or peels), or a legume, or a near grain, or a grain, or a pulse. Variety. That will also help ensure that what might be imbalanced on one day averages out over time.

Or, you could not treat them at all. It isn't necessary, but it is satisfying.

and I should have done more research for my BSFL farm. Step one, don't use a black barrel (all I had). More shade would have helped too. possibly I started too small, as well (not enoiugh volume to moderate temperature changes? I've given it a lot of thought, but haven't come up with any satisfying answers.

Whatever you decide, I wish you every fortune in it.

Yeah. I try to give them something different every day. I was surprised they didn't eat the strawberries. It is normally a favorite. I have some watermelon from our garden in the fridge for tomorrow. When full grown, they should be eating 50 pounds of food a week, so I will limit healthy treats to a variety of five pounds a week then. Is that about right?

And whey? David makes his own yogurt. He can give chickens the whey?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yeah. I try to give them something different every day. I was surprised they didn't eat the strawberries. It is normally a favorite. I have some watermelon from our garden in the fridge for tomorrow. When full grown, they should be eating 50 pounds of food a week, so I will limit healthy treats to a variety of five pounds a week then. Is that about right?

And whey? David makes his own yogurt. He can give chickens the whey?

Yes, you absolutely can - and because its almost entirely water, you needn't concern yourself with the "by weight" rule so much. Watermelon, similar. Many of us offer things like watermelon chilled to help with heat stress - water, some key electrolytes, and of course lower temp. Strawberries popular too. Many offer chilled grapes as treats. I have muscadine vines on property, I could - but i don't. Grapes are very high in tannins, which can inhibit absorption of other nutrients. So while I allow my chickens to eat what few grapes drop from the vines, I don't have my vineyard in the acres set aside for them (which they routinely escape), and I don't deliberately pluck grapes to feed them.

and yes, 5# per week, if offering 50# of feed per week, as a general guideline.