Use Chicken Feed for Shiner Bait Fishing

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Feeding Fish to Chickens

• Thread starter cibula11
• Start date Dec 3, 2014

• #1

Mar 13, 2013

84

20

111

Iowa

I have access to a couple of smaller fish tanks and had a thought to put them to use. Has anyone bred fish (minnows or guppies, something that reproduces fairly quickly/easily) and used them as treats or to supplement food for their chickens?

Seems like it would work, but wondered if anyone has heard or tried this before?

• #2

Oct 13, 2008

1,018

276

289

We keep small "mosquito fish", little orange minnows, in all our outdoor water features to eat mosquito larvae (they also eat some of the algae to keep the water clearer). We put them in our little ornamental pond, in pots where we keep waterplants, and in the little tubs where we grow azolla for feeding to the chickens. We've fed them a few of the extras when the population gets a little large, and they will certainly eat them.

If your goal is to produce some kind of animal protein to feed your chickens, in anything like an efficient way, I think you're much better off culturing soldier grubs, meal worms, or something similar. Maybe even compost worms, though they won't reproduce as quickly. I don't think there's any fish that will grow as quickly or reproduce as efficiently as an insect. You'd be producing much more biomass quicker and more efficiently--and besides, insects, grubs, and worms are a perfect feed for chickens, to which they are already well adapted.

But if you're wanting to raise minnows or something as a hobby for it's own sake, there's nothing wrong with feeding some of the surplus fishes as an occasional treat. (There is the issue some people raise that feeding excessive amounts of fish, while not unhealthy for the hens or the egg-eaters, can give the eggs a subtly "fishy" taste that seems to bother some people, but that wouldn't be a concern in the minor quantities you're talking about.)

• #3

We keep small "mosquito fish", little orange minnows, in all our outdoor water features to eat mosquito larvae (they also eat some of the algae to keep the water clearer). We put them in our little ornamental pond, in pots where we keep waterplants, and in the little tubs where we grow azolla for feeding to the chickens. We've fed them a few of the extras when the population gets a little large, and they will certainly eat them.

If your goal is to produce some kind of animal protein to feed your chickens, in anything like an efficient way, I think you're much better off culturing soldier grubs, meal worms, or something similar. Maybe even compost worms, though they won't reproduce as quickly. I don't think there's any fish that will grow as quickly or reproduce as efficiently as an insect. You'd be producing much more biomass quicker and more efficiently--and besides, insects, grubs, and worms are a perfect feed for chickens, to which they are already well adapted.

But if you're wanting to raise minnows or something as a hobby for it's own sake, there's nothing wrong with feeding some of the surplus fishes as an occasional treat. (There is the issue some people raise that feeding excessive amounts of fish, while not unhealthy for the hens or the egg-eaters, can give the eggs a subtly "fishy" taste that seems to bother some people, but that wouldn't be a concern in the minor quantities you're talking about.)

I raised chub and shiner minnows in two borrow pits and used them for fish bait. The surplus I fed to my chickens. Try to only feed minnows that your chickens can swallow whole. Soon you'll learn what a feeding frenzy looks like.

• #4

So, where are you from?????????????????

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