Insects as feed for poultry

[Artizen Farm]

What are your experiences and attitudes about using insects as food for poultry? Do you buy insects, or would you?

 

[Chikenux]

What are your experiences and attitudes about using insects as food for poultry? Do you buy insects, or would you?

Protein is Protein from snakes to fly larvae.

 

[Chikenux]

A dead road kill put it a bucket, drill some holes in the bottom and top, make sure its far enough from the nearest home, and there you go free chicken treat.

 

[Battlepants]

I like Black Soldier Fly Larvae as a treat. I wouldn't do this as the sole feed as it would get too expensive and (I think) a non-balanced diet.

Building a Black Soldier Fly Larvae farm has been a consideration of mine, but not sure if my wife will let me get away with that since there will be a decent amount of stink that comes from the decaying material.

As a side note, my wife HATES the wolf spiders we get out here. But my chickens absolutely love them as snacks. Double useful in that my wife knows that spider ain't coming back into the house AND my hen gets a big crunchy treat!

 

[Lizzy733]

We have a reptile as well, but our feeder options are a bit limited in NZ.

My girls get insects as treats only, but live or freezedried mealworms or crickets are always a favorite! I'd avoid slugs, worms and snails - they can carry some nasty parasites, though I have one girl that goes nuts over earthworms.

At bird rescue, we supplement ducklings with a block of frozen bloodworms in their waterer, which was always well received.

Black soldier fly larvae are also amazing.

As far as nutrition goes, crickets are pretty well rounded, not too fatty, but lacking in calcium. Mealworms have a lot of fat, so should stay in the treat category. The beetles, less so, so I usually feed them out the old ones when I'm farming them. Definitely the cleanest one out if these you can raise yourself.

BSF aren't as fatty as mealworms and they have quite a lot of calcium. My beardie gets these as a staple as they're the most cost effective option in our area. As far as composters go, cause that's what they're best at, they will break down meat, which is usually a no no for composting an can be set up to 'self harvest'. We have heaps in our compost bin at the moment, but we haven't started harvesting them.

They'll find what they can in the grass and around the run. It's always good to offer a nice enriching snack and I like to swap mine out to suit the time of year or to keep things interesting, but keep the treats to 10% of their diet. Anything in excess can be problematic.

My usual rounds are the bugs mentioned above, sunflower seed, millet spray, and corn in winter. They are equally excited no matter what the treat.

 

[Isadora]

A dead road kill put it a bucket, drill some holes in the bottom and top, make sure its far enough from the nearest home, and there you go free chicken treat.

I tried this last year and my pullets would not touch the maggots.
Now that they're older and hopefully wiser, I should try it again.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

What are your experiences and attitudes about using insects as food for poultry? Do you buy insects, or would you?

To me they are fine as a treat and or supplement but NOT a complete or balanced diet.. despite being an excellent source of protein most insect larvae, pupa, and adults are quite high in the fat department and low in certain key nutrients/vitamins.

I have bought them red wigglers, and darkling beetles (aka meal worms) and raised my own colonies of both. It was a fun project and experience.. but ultimately became work to maintain another species in addition to my over sized hobby flock. My environment isn't warm enough to sustain live BSFL.

I have bought dried mealworms.. the birds still like them but not as much as live. Crickets are a riot. With free ranging in the PNW, the birds got enough worms they quit responding to mine like a treat how they did when we lived in the desert.

Maggots didn't grow large enough in my climate or crawl out at a constant enough pace to attract the attention of my birds that were busy free ranging and looking for their own stuff.. so YOUR mileage will likely vary.

I prefer to attract insects to the poultry area.. a wet cardboard on the ground for a couple days and then move it around works well to bring up worms. Turning over a shovel of dirt is always a big hit as well.

Hope this gives some food for thought and that you're enjoying BYC. Happy adventures!

 

[3KillerBs]

My sister raises Dubia roaches for her reptiles and gave me a mini-colony last summer. My chickens loved them and came running when I said "Bug!" But I personally wouldn't bother with raising them year-round.

The chickens are, of course, welcome to all the bugs they can find in their run (HPAI permitting them to go out there, of course), and I'll bring them bugs from the garden if I can.

(BTW, Dubias thrive and breed on a diet of All-Flock feed with watermelon or canteloupe rinds for moisture).

 

[raingarden]

Old timers in the South used to hang a horse head from the slaughter house over the edge of a pond. Maggots would drop out of the horse head for months and fall into the pond to feed fish. A little too exciting for me. I tried hanging dead doves in a chicken coop but, for some reason, they dried up instead of making maggots.

When we were raising BSF we sealed the container except for the maggot escape hatch and put an eight foot exhaust pipe out of the top to carry any odors up and away.

Raising insects can be a lot of work and it almost makes insect protein and fat too expensive to feed chickens. Raising fish to feed chickens is more cost effective.

 

[nicalandia]

Protein is Protein from snakes to fly larvae.

Not all proteins have the same quality, Plant based protein are not absorbed as readily as animal/insect protein.