Comments on: Poultry Feed

By: Bentley

Bentley — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 14:13:50 +0000

Great question, Lloyd!
I wouldn’t recommend it, personally. It probably contains various meat bi-products etc – and overall, would likely have a much greater potential for going foul and attracting unwanted organisms (maggots etc).

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 22:17:52 +0000

Can I feed my worms dry dog food? What would be the big difference?

By: Dan Krauth

Dan Krauth — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 22:03:52 +0000

Here’s a tip I don’t see here. Take the chicken mash crumbles as pictured above and run it through a coffee bean grinder to make it a fine powder. Much easier for the worms to deal with.

By: Rick Szekeres

Rick Szekeres — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 12:08:43 +0000

Matthys, glad to hear that the worms can co-exist with your chooks. Do you think the “chick starter”, used as kitty litter, can be safely used in my deep bed litter if I scoop out the solids and hot compost those separately? Provided the cats have properly functioning kidneys, their urine should be sterile. I currently hot compost the manure/bedding from 11 horses in a 6’x6’x24′ windrow that often exceeds 150°F.

By: Matthys

Matthys — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 20:56:44 +0000

Rick, great idea about the chickens and worms, it is working for me in my current set up of 50 sq feet deep litter and two chooks. Introduced redworms about two months ago and surprise! they are doing well (they are everywhere). I am sure the population is still growing, and hope to slowly upp my chook population and see how the worms can sustain their protein requirements. I add kitchen scraps from my family of five and the neighbours, anything really that would go into a normal worm farm, and it dissapears in a day:) i also believe this may relieve the pressure on the worm population. Like the cat litter in ur scenario. However, deep litter may not be thermophilic enoough to deal with pathogens in cat poop, which may find their way to ur eggs! It really happens! 🙂

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:05:10 +0000

Eve – weevils (or flour mites as you call them) can be found in almost every flour and grain product. When I bring flour, grains, rice, oats, etc., and dry pet food home from the store I place it immediately in the freezer for 72 hours – a week and then I place it in airtight containers. This kills the bugs and eggs.

By: Stephen Shaw

Stephen Shaw — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 21:19:24 +0000

Two months ago I asked the question ” Can you use dry catfood ( 11% fat ) to feed worms? “. I put about 1000 red wigglers in a Rubbermaid tub with bedding and a lot of the catfood. they have multiplied and seem to be thriving. Since I was able to get several hundred pounds of the feed free, I will probably put it in my compost pile and let them have at it!

Steve

By: Bentley

Bentley — Tue, 31 May 2011 21:08:01 +0000

Interesting question, Stephen!
I’d be a wee bit careful with it given the extra fat content, but yeah it’s certainly worth testing on a small scale. Please do keep us posted!

Kind regards

Bentley

By: Stephen Shaw

Stephen Shaw — Sun, 29 May 2011 15:50:27 +0000

I have access (free) to a lot of Purina Catfood that is out of code and can’t be sold. Has anyone tried using this product with worms? Most of the ingredients are the same as Worm Chow. My only concern is that the fat content is 11%, much higher than Worm Chow. Unless someone says NO DON’T I will probably try it in a small test bed and post the results.

By: Rick Szekeres

Rick Szekeres — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:44:50 +0000

When I saw the title, “Poultry Feed”, I thought it was going to be about using surplus compost worms as chicken feed. Not so. It’s about actually buying commerical feed for worms, which just baffles me. Anyhoo, let me tell you about my idea regarding chicken feed. I’ve got to warn you that I think “outside the box”… way outside. While researching natural alternatives to commerical cat litter, I read that unmedicated chick starter ($12 per 50 pounds) works quite well and is much cheaper than the store-bought stuff ($12 per 42 pounds). I then read on this site that Bentley had successfully used pet waste as worm chow. That got me to thinking. Imagine an 18” deep pit with a chicken coop above it. In the pit, I would use the deep litter method (adding bedding atop the chicken waste and compositing in-situ). But, I would add worms to work over the chicken manure/bedding mix. As an added bonus, the chickens would get quite a bit of Winter exercise hunting for worms to eat in the bedding while scratching madly in the deep litter, thereby providing additional tilling. Jumping back to the cat litter alternative (chicken feed)… I would add that (after use) to the deep litter and have the worms and chickens work that. As chickens are known for scavenging on manure piles for undigested grain, the “cat litter” would get recylced as either chicken or worm food and hopefully, that would limit the worm predation by the resident chickens. Is this a radical concept or what??? Other than the typical drawback of cat waste (toxoplasmosis), are there any drawbacks provided the compost is not used in the garden?