Low cost, bio-available protein packet
As I search and research sources for locally available sustainable chicken food, naturally my mind turns to bugs. Insects. High-density, bio-available protein packets that self-deliver themselves directly to the chickens. It doesn’t get any more local or sustainable than that! Providing protein is the biggest challenge for helping the sustainable chicken’s diet become more local. In the old days milk and various forms of dairy products were the primary protein staple for the farmyard chicken flock. I’m guessing most backyard sustainable chicken enthusiasts don’t have easy access to inexpensive surplus dairy, so we must look elsewhere, hence the quest for bugs.
If the chickens are on rotation throughout your backyard or farm, they can self forage for bugs (as well as seeds and clover and herbs), reducing costs and as important, reducing labor in chicken care. But what if you have your chickens in a run or a coop? What if you don’t have sufficient or appropriate space to allow your chooks to have free run of your backyard? Can you induce the bugs to come to them? As you are undoubtably aware, if you have chickens, there will naturally be bugs flying about. If you are doing a good job with deep litter and sanitary conditions for your hens, you won’t have a problem with excessive numbers of flies breeding in the chicken coop & poop, so how do you attract extra insects to visit and become food for your chickens? Or perhaps said another way, how can we effortlessly convert insects into eggs?
Ranging about on the web, this post popped up first from “Chickens in Soup” http://www.cityfarmer.org/chicken84.html In URBAN AGRICULTURAL NOTES by City Farmer, Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture
Flies which are attracted to the ammonia in chicken wastes are put to good use. They are captured in traps and fed to the hens. Some studies have shown that at least a quarter of a chicken’s diet can be flies, another half weeds and other plant wastes, and their egg laying will still continue to equal that of chickens raised entirely on commercial feed.
I’m not certain about the research alluded to here, but certainly self-harvested flies and other insects can provide a significant proportion of the sustainable chicken’s diet.
Chris Morris of IntoAfrica with his fly trap
I can imagine some simple devices for capturing flies, but who has time to think when a quick Google search can reveal someone else’s careful thought and years of experience in .37 seconds? Chris Morris from IntoAfrica recently posted his fly trap and experience with them. I love solutions that come from folks working in Africa, they’re are always elegant, effective, and extremely inexpensive. It’s essentially a couple of plastic water bottles stung together, nice! Chickens love flies. And I love the dance they do as they are tracking and trying to catch a fly.
You can develop your own technology, there are many examples of fly catchers on the internet, it looks fairly simple to create your own and modify it to facilitate easy harvest of flies to feed to your chickens. Most seem to be focused solely on flies, but I would be concerned if too many other, beneficial insects got caught in such a trap. Try it and monitor for what you’re getting. And let us know in the comments about your experience!
Enticing flies and other insects to become food for your backyard chickens is a seasonal affair, spring and summer see many more insects than fall and winter. So this is a supplemental strategy at best. I will be profiling other low-cost, homegrown protein strategies in posts to come.
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