Okay for Chickens to eat Japanese Beatles?

[WestIndy]

Anyone have experience with this? I have flowering trees that these beatles love to eat and I would love to be able to feed them to my chickens (my first year having chickens). Will the chickens eat them?

Just curious....

 

[maxpedley]

i always go by a simpla rule. If the chickens eat them they are fine and if they dont they arent fine. Chickens usually know best what to eat and what not to eat

 

[lazy gardener]

Japanese beetles are chicken crack. Last summer, I put a beetle trap inside my run, and later had it just beside my run. The chickens learned to hang out under the trap to snag any beetles that fell. Then, I'd dump the beetles out of the trap into a bucket of water, and the chickens would go bobbing for beetles. They also came on the run when ever I went into the yard with my beetle jug. It was an ammonia bottle cut from the bottom in a scoop shape, with a plastic bag hanging from the mouth of the bottle. The bottle was mounted on a stick. I could reach across a wide, tall rose bush to tap beetles into the jug. We'd parade around the yard several times/day. I'd scoop beetles, the girls would snag the escapees and we'd all be happy. Their crops would get so full that they looked like they might just tip over.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Never feed Japanese beetles to your chickens unless you provide them with chopsticks and soy sauce. Also never feed 'Chinese' beetles to your chickens because they will be hungry again in an hour.

I've said this before but it needs repeating, "Never fall asleep in your chicken coop unless you want to wake up inside your chickens!!!" Chickens can and will eat any and every thing except maybe most raw or dry peas and beans. And if you cook the raw peas and beans they also become chicken chow.

I suspect that this factoid is why some refuse to feed their chickens mash or pellets containing soybeans, even though the soybeans in chicken feed has been ground and well cooked and processed to expel the soybean oil so that we humans can use the soybean oil in our kitchens

 

[lazy gardener]

Perhaps that's why my chickens are always hungry. I just thought they were Japanese beetles. Really, they should have an other name. It sounds so... racist.

 

[pdirt]

Never feed Japanese beetles to your chickens unless you provide them with chopsticks and soy sauce.  Also never feed 'Chinese' beetles to your chickens because they will be hungry again in an hour. 

I've said this before but it needs repeating, "Never fall asleep in your chicken coop unless you want to wake up inside your chickens!!!"  Chickens can and will eat any and every thing except maybe most raw or dry peas and beans.  And if you cook the raw peas and beans they also become chicken chow.

I suspect that this factoid is why some refuse to feed their chickens mash or pellets containing soybeans, even though the soybeans in chicken feed has been ground and well cooked and processed to expel the soybean oil so that we humans can use the soybean oil in our kitchens

Lol on the chopsticks!

The reason why (and I think most) people avoid soybeans is two-part: GMOs (soy being one of the most prevelant and tinkered GMO crops grown) and digestion issues. IMHO, simply cooking and grinding soy doesn't help enough. If you look at the food cultures that soy came from (Asian), they almost never eat soy this way. It's usually been fermented in some way as in tempeh, natto, tofu (tofu isn't technically fermented), miso and soy sauce are just a few. Natto in particular, if you can get past it's Limburger aroma, is a superfood with high levels of K2.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Whether the soy is crushed and cooked and the oil is extracted with either a press or a chemical solvent, or whether the soybean is fermented is immaterial to its fitness as a chicken feed. Before the first GMO soybean seed was ever covered with dirt, I attempted to feed my chickens locally grown organic soybeans and black eyed peas. My chickens loathed them.

The legume seeds remained on the ground until the rodents or what ever carried them off. I then tried feeding soybeans and field peas free choice with the same results. I did however see the occasional chicken pick up a soybean or black eyed pea but they quickly dropped the dried raw legume in favor of the more palatable (to a chicken that is) grass seeds, meaning things like: wheat, corn, oats, barley, millet, grain sorghum, etc.

I nominate my friend from Maine to come up with a new name for the Japanese Beetle. Remember now, no racists names like: Brazil nut, German Shepard, Cuban cigar, Irish Setter, Russian wolf hound, Jamaican rum, Carpathian walnut, Greek yogurt, or Egyptian pyramid. All these names are too racists.

 

[WestIndy]

Great to hear this! Didn't know if they had a bitter taste to them or not. Now I am kind of looking forward to the green pests coming this spring. Might even tell my neighbor to bring his over. Wonder if I could put them in a ziploc and stick them in the freezer for a winter snack?? Hmmm...

 

[lazy gardener]

WestIndy: Re: the bitter taste, I really wouldn't know, as I've never tried one! As for re-naming the pests, how about the bronze waving beetle... for their brilliant color, and their habit of holding their hind legs up in the air? Yes, they can be frozen, but I've found that when they're dead, they stink to high heavens. I'll stick to seasonal use of them, thanks. Folks down south freeze some of their seasonal bugs... cicadae being one of them.