posted 4 years ago
I recommend mealworms. I think that's the most common bug grown for chickens.
Swiped from Wiki:
As feed and pet food: Mealworms are typically used as a pet food for captive reptiles, fish, and birds. They are also provided to wild birds in bird feeders, particularly during the nesting season. Mealworms are useful for their high protein content. They are also used as fishing bait.
They are commercially available in bulk and are typically available in containers with bran or oatmeal for food. Commercial growers incorporate a juvenile hormone into the feeding process to keep the mealworm in the larval stage and achieve an abnormal length of 2 cm or greater.
(end swipe)
I bought a bag of rice bran from a health food store, and got my mealworm supply from Amazon. Search this phrase on Amazon: >> 1000ct Live Mealworms, Reptile, Birds, Chickens, Fish Food (Large) << . A minimum of care (they are REAL easy to keep up), and you'll never have to buy more mealworms. Life cycle is about 6 months, so every six months you'll have *thousands* of mealworms. Just keep feeding them rice bran, and slice up an apple or potato once a week for their water supply.
However! You said:
>> Anything which is worthwhile and doesn't have to be done indoors.
Hmmm, I think they're definitely worthwhile ... but they don't survive winters. And they need to be kept dry. They'll survive refrigerator temperarture for a week or so, that's as cold as they can go. Do you have a garage? Mine are in my basement, rarely gets colder than 60 degrees down there.
Determining the difference between Bockings 4 and 14 is done by consensus. It's like trying to identify the difference between twins.
"There are other spots on the web to get my fix proving someone is an idiot but no other place for what I get here." -- former permie Brice Moss, 2012.