Grasshoppers for Chickens?

Had an interesting thought as I was driving a tractor swatting grasshoppers away... they've been pretty intense this year in Texas. We always have them, but some years are much worse than others.

I wonder if there would be a clever way to economically trap/catch/harvest them to feed to the chickens? My son can catch them and the chickens gobble them up, but they don't seem to have much luck catching them on their own. It seems like some crushed up grasshoppers would be a great source of protein for the girls.

Any clever ideas for grasshopper traps? 😜

Well this popped up as a linked post! I should have done some more homework first... down the rabbit hole I go...

https://permies.com/t/125691/Amazing-grasshopper-harvest-nets-Philippines

Hi Blake,
I do not mean to disparage your chickens in any way... but my flock would decimate the ones in their pen. They had no trouble catching them. Maybe texas grasshoppers are faster :)... but I imagine if they decided they wanted some, the chickens would be able to figure it out.

Years ago when I lived in California there was a huge outbreak of them, and so I made a big sweep net with some of the fine netting that I was using to protect my young trees.  The veggies were a lost cause, although judicious use of row covers might have saved the day.  A few sweeps of the net over the garden area would procure a full handful of hoppers, and that year we were raising some new layers from chicks and they thrived.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Blake,
I do not mean to disparage your chickens in any way... but my flock would decimate the ones in their pen. They had no trouble catching them. Maybe texas grasshoppers are faster :)... but I imagine if they decided they wanted some, the chickens would be able to figure it out.

Hahaha... I guess I have lazy chickens! I do suppose they can catch them... but it does seem that the chicken run is pretty devoid of grasshoppers while the fields are teeming with them. Maybe they are doing a better job than I'm giving them credit for... or maybe the grasshoppers are just really smart this year! lol.

You do make a good point though... barring lazy chickens or super-intelligent grasshoppers, if I was set up to free range the problem would take care of itself.

Alder Burns wrote:Years ago when I lived in California there was a huge outbreak of them, and so I made a big sweep net with some of the fine netting that I was using to protect my young trees.  The veggies were a lost cause, although judicious use of row covers might have saved the day.  A few sweeps of the net over the garden area would procure a full handful of hoppers, and that year we were raising some new layers from chicks and they thrived.

I bet they loved them. Wouldn't it be cool if you could vacuum all them up, freeze/preserve them some way, and save them for winter time to feed?

I wonder if I could make some sort of light-weight sweep net that was a few feet or more across, attach the kids bikes, and send them tearing across the field? Happy chickens, tired kids... seems like a win-win.

Friend of a friend has an ATV that has two springy pieces of steel out at a 45 in front, and a high powered blower at the bottom of the vee blowing into a big bag. Drives through fields, the wires kick the grass up, and the grasshoppers jump inwards towards the middle of the vee where they get sucked into the bag.


In a more low-tech version, I saw a book once that had plans for what I think was called a "grasshopper tractor". Basically two skids. At the front of the two skids was a wire stretched that does the same thing, causes grasshoppers to jump. Mounted towards the back of the skids was a wide, flat pan filled with water with a thin coat of oil. There were vertical posts to push the contraption at the very back, and a screen between the operator and the pan, so grasshoppers jumped up as the tractor is pushed, bounce against the screen and fall into the oily water to drown. Might be something to tinker with...  

Nick Williams wrote:Friend of a friend has an ATV that has two springy pieces of steel out at a 45 in front, and a high powered blower at the bottom of the vee blowing into a big bag. Drives through fields, the wires kick the grass up, and the grasshoppers jump inwards towards the middle of the vee where they get sucked into the bag.


In a more low-tech version, I saw a book once that had plans for what I think was called a "grasshopper tractor". Basically two skids. At the front of the two skids was a wire stretched that does the same thing, causes grasshoppers to jump. Mounted towards the back of the skids was a wide, flat pan filled with water with a thin coat of oil. There were vertical posts to push the contraption at the very back, and a screen between the operator and the pan, so grasshoppers jumped up as the tractor is pushed, bounce against the screen and fall into the oily water to drown. Might be something to tinker with...  

I can't believe someone has done this! A blower sounds like a good idea... I really am going to brainstorm this more and see if I could do something. Maybe freezing grasshoppers is silly, but if I could catch a substantial amount economically while they are all over, it would make a huge difference in winter feeding.

Thank you Nick!

This has possibilities! I guess my personal caution would be that the 'hoppers are as clean as what they eat. If it's treated with "gick" they would become accumulators, and the chickens would concentrate it up the food chain, leading to hoomans. Maybe paranoid, but it's worth watching.

Also, I vaguely recall reading that chickens gorging themselves on 'hoppers in the 1930's dust bowl gave the meat and eggs an unpleasant flavour. I'll see if I can dig up the reference. It may be better to catch them live and feed them on good stuff for a little while before sending them to freezer heaven.

Blake Dozier wrote:You do make a good point though... barring lazy chickens or super-intelligent grasshoppers, if I was set up to free range the problem would take care of itself.

Well, yes, free range would make it easier for them to catch the grasshoppers, but it would also make it easier for predators to catch your chickens. What I like to do is take an electric net (something like the ones from Premier 1), and move it to a new spot every day or two. This gives them fresh grass and bugs to eat. And if you have a mesh bottom on the mobile coop, then they spread the manure around for you and there is less cleaning of the coop.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:This has possibilities! I guess my personal caution would be that the 'hoppers are as clean as what they eat. If it's treated with "gick" they would become accumulators, and the chickens would concentrate it up the food chain, leading to hoomans. Maybe paranoid, but it's worth watching.

Also, I vaguely recall reading that chickens gorging themselves on 'hoppers in the 1930's dust bowl gave the meat and eggs an unpleasant flavour. I'll see if I can dig up the reference. It may be better to catch them live and feed them on good stuff for a little while before sending them to freezer heaven.

This thread has spurred me to read more about grasshoppers and I came across an article discussing controlling them with chemicals. I'm not interested in that, but it said one of the challenges with grasshoppers is that they are highly mobile. This would mean, even if I wasn't treated my fields with 'gick' they could be hanging out in others that had been. It's certainly worth nothing and being careful about.

I could see how too much of anything could impact the eggs. You can tell a difference in a chicken egg that has been free ranged vs a commercial egg... so it would make sense that if their diet shifted toward something specific, like grasshoppers alone, it would impact it. Another excellent point to keep in mind.

Thank you for bringing up both of these thoughts.