Question More illegal things.... coming?

[Bayvistafarm]

https://www.barnevelders.net/why-is-it- ... K5Ci2D5Df8

Good lord.

[ross]

Hmmm don’t feed anyway but can see the argument .

[WLLady]

well, my mealworms are grown in bran. and fed apples, carrots and potato slices. and i will feed them to my chickens if i want. i absolutely do not agree with feeding the same or related species back to that species because that's how prions get around. but if things are grown and fed responsibly.....i can certainly see legislation because let's face it, there's a bunch of really incredibly stupid people out there (just watch the news any night of the week)....
no my chickens don't NEED them. but they sure like them and at this time of year there's not a whole lot of bugs to be found here in ontario!

now from a biologists point of view the same - the very same - argument can be made for feeding eggs back to chickens. Eggs are a chicken derived protein with glycogen. How would feeding a chicken protein back to a chicken make more sense than a bran fed mealworm? it doesn't. if anything the egg feeding should be illegal, because it is a within-species food/feed. I ONLY do this is it someone is in dire straights. cooking does NOT eliminate the prion proteins, so cooking the egg and feeding it back will not necessary prevent a prion protein from going from egg to chicken. it's just that we don't know of any chicken prion proteins. i also have never heard of an animal prion protein infecting a chicken....(just saying). but on that front maybe there is a paper out there somewhere in the peer reviewed world that has....

mammal proteins are very different from insect and bird proteins. and so far it is mammals that have the prion issues. not reptiles or birds or insects. So. not sure that i agree, but IF the mealworms are fed with human waste or animal byproduct and fed back to that animal....and using human waste for anything human fed is just a bad idea because of viruses/prions/disease/etc, not to mention we can't handle a lot of the bugs/bacteria and fungi that are involved with breaking down human waste. exactly the same reason i do not use human waste biomass to fertilize my corn/bean field.

[Epona]

I do feed it to the game birds in the winter. Rarely give them to the chickens. On the same note, I have never feed eggs, cooked or uncooked, back to any bird species we have. The game birds need a far higher protein level all year around. I’m careful of the source of the mealworms. I can see that feeding mealworms that have been raised on human waste would be highly suspect.

[Farrier1987]

What do you get when the government crosses an abalone with a crocodile? A crock a baloney.

[KimChick]

Interesting information.
Since chickens are omnivores, I see no reason why they can't have some mealworms. During the winter, when my hens are in the barn and, therefore, cannot free range, I give them dried black solder fly larvae with their scratch. They get about 10 pieces per hen, and not everyday. I would never give them a bowl full of that alone like it shows in an offshoot of the link above. Even if I did have live mealworms, I would never give them a plate full.
So, during the winter months, my hens get Snackyard dried BSF larvae. It is a Cambridge, Ontario company: https://snackyard.ca/ that uses organic vegetables to feed their bugs.
Our hens have eaten frogs, and the odd baby snake, and lots of other bugs and worms. So, I see no reason for a bit of dried larvae grown with organic vegetables during the winter. Actually, this was an excellent winter for egg laying; perhaps the Snackyard treat really agrees with their bird bodies.
Also, cattle are grazers; they should not be given animal proteins anyway. It's no wonder they get sick.

[Epona]

I’ve had good results with Snackyard products too. First year for feeding the dried black soldier....practically get mobbed when I rattle them in the feed scope. The peafowl, even the young, will eat them from my hand via the scope.