I believe mad cow disease put a stop to commercial use of animal components in feed for animals that will be consumed. I don't know if this applies to insects. When I was a kid we fed burnt chicken feathers to cows.. I think that is outlawed now as well (commercially, I'm sure you could do it for home use).
I think insects to chickens is a great idea though. There are some people that grow mealworms for chickens and I've seen dried mealworms at the feed store as chicken treats.
I had some chickens this year (my first year with them). A weasel got in through a small hole smaller than my fist and killed every chicken at about 9 weeks old. He then took about half of them back out the same hole... in pieces and left the remainder for me to find in the morning. It was a pretty gruesome scene. I set some traps but was never able to catch him.
But before the massacre, I would take the chickens out at night and hold them under the back porch light and they would happily stuff themselves on insects and moths landing on the wall.
I want to come up with an insect trap so as to avoid the trouble of raising insects. They are all over anyway... why cultivate them?
I'm building a better coop and am going to try again next spring.
I bet you could design a lighted tunnel that moths from the street would happily follow straight into the chicken coop! There might need to be some trickery involved, as I think tend to fly around the light and not directly at it.
I think insects to chickens is a great idea though. There are some people that grow mealworms for chickens and I've seen dried mealworms at the feed store as chicken treats.
I had some chickens this year (my first year with them). A weasel got in through a small hole smaller than my fist and killed every chicken at about 9 weeks old. He then took about half of them back out the same hole... in pieces and left the remainder for me to find in the morning. It was a pretty gruesome scene. I set some traps but was never able to catch him. But before the massacre, I would take the chickens out at night and hold them under the back porch light and they would happily stuff themselves on insects and moths landing on the wall.
I want to come up with an insect trap so as to avoid the trouble of raising insects. They are all over anyway... why cultivate them?
I'm building a better coop and am going to try again next spring.