Gammarus and Hyalella "scuds"

In brainstorming potential at-home cultivated foods for poultry (specifically ducks), it occurred to me that maybe these little critters might be a good option. They're in quite a few lakes here in BC, and I've observed wild ducks munching them down with gusto whenever they encounter them. They're often referred to as "scuds", and the more well-known european species is Gammarus Pulex, but as far as I can tell the local variety is Gammarus Lacustris as well as the similar but smaller Hyalella Azteca.

They seem fairly simple to culture, and youtube has a number of aquarium enthusiasts using them as a live food for their fish. The fact that they're detritivores and can be fed on pretty much any soggy rotten biomass is a plus, as is their ability to explode in numbers if conditions are good.

They would appear to be an ideal food for laying birds, in that they're protein-rich but also have a calcium-containing shell. They can also be cultured at home indoors, making them a great asset during the winter when the birds can't just go out into pasture to eat bugs. Has anyone out there tried them as a home-cultured chicken or duck food?

I looked up Wikipedia to find what you were talking about.
"Gammarus lacustris plays an important role in many of the freshwater ecosystems that it inhabits. It is a detritivore and may also consume algae, mainly diatoms.
It is considered an indicator species for the overall health and stability of the ecosystem. G. lacustris can also inhabit a wide array of environments, ranging from low altitude calcium-rich lakes to high altitude, cold, and calcium-poor lakes. This influences its biology: at low altitudes, it is known to die after first reproduction, but in colder waters, it lives to reproduce repeatedly."

It seems the G.Lacustris are pretty important  so feeding them to ducks may be out of order?

John C Daley wrote:It seems the G.Lacustris are pretty important  so feeding them to ducks may be out of order?

I'm not suggesting harvesting large quantities from the natural environment on an ongoing basis - rather culturing them indoors in buckets. It would involve a one-time harvest of a few dozen scuds to establish a breeding population, which could then be kept going indefinitely.

This separated culture might have an additional benefit - reduction or elimination of potential parasite infection. It seems as though gammarus is often the intermediate host of trophically transmitted multi-host parasites for which the definitive host is waterfowl. Polymorphidae species in particular.
Fascinatingly, these parasites exhibit parasite increased trophic facilitation, causing an infected gammarus to seek out light and move nearer the surface, making it more likely to be eaten by a duck. Equal parts icky and interesting, those parasites!
Anyways, the final part of the life cycle is that the parasite's eggs are emitted in the duck's feces back into the aquatic environment, to be eaten by and reinfect the gammarus. So if I were to set up a pond and seed it with gammarus for the ducks to eat, these sort of parasites would likely be an issue, but by culturing the shrimp indoors the cycle can be broken so long as I don't put anything with duck poo on it into the gammarus bucket. The cultured gammarus should be parasite-free.

I know from experience that Gammerus grow quite well on commercial shrimp diets. Gammerus turn bright orange/red when boiled or stir-fried and they are delicious. They have several distinct advantages, from a farming standpoint, over the standard varieties of farmed shrimp.

I think Gammerus have tremendous potential through selective breeding, by using novel commercial rearing strategies, and by developing a niche market, to be a very profitable gourmet food item.