Harvesting Termites to Feed Your Chickens

Why the flying ones are the ones to catch

Most rainy seasons, a farmer rings us to say his compound is covered in wings. The termites are coming out of the ground in their thousands, the lights are on, and the birds are going mad at the doorway. Nobody has told him what to do with them.

Those winged termites are the reproductive ones, the swarmers. They are the only termites worth the trouble, because they are big enough to pick up, fat enough to be worth drying, and they come to you for a few nights each year. The workers and soldiers that build the mound are small, hard to collect cleanly and full of soil.

Termites are a traditional food in many parts of Ghana, and they are one of the few protein sources a free-range flock can find for itself. They do not replace a feed. They do add something the maize and the bran cannot give, which is animal protein and fat in one cheap package, with amino acids that a grain-based mash usually runs short of.

These ranges come from published analyses, not from a guarantee. Your own batch will sit somewhere inside its range, and only a lab test tells you where.

What the bird actually gets from a termite

Protein is the headline, but it is not the whole story. Dried termites carry a lot of fat, which is useful energy, and the fat is also where the trouble starts. Fat oxidises. A batch dried slowly in damp weather can smell sour or turn rancid within weeks, and rancid fat makes birds eat less and can upset their gut.

The outer shell is chitin. Birds cannot break it down much, so it behaves like a small amount of fibre. A little of it is harmless. A large share makes the mash bulky and lowers how much of the rest of the feed the bird digests. That is one reason we talk about shares of the mix and not handfuls a day.

Like most animal proteins, termite meal helps fill the amino acid gaps in a maize and soya mash. It does not fill them all, so the rest of the ration still needs checking against a proper formula.

Timing the swarm: lamps, rain and a short window

The swarm is short. In most of southern Ghana the flying termites come out after the first proper rain, usually in the early evening, when the air is warm and the ground is soft. They fly to light. A few good nights can give you a supplement for a fortnight; a dry spell can give you nothing at all.

Set up a lamp over a wide basin or a white sheet, with a tub of water underneath. Termites that hit the light drop, and their wings come off within a short time. Those that fall into water drown quickly and can be gathered in the morning. Check the sheet at intervals, because bats, the birds and the neighbours' children will all come for them.

Collect only as many as you can process within a day or two. Termites left in a warm bucket start to ferment, and a fermented termite is a poor feed and a bad smell in the kitchen.

Which termites to collect, and which to leave alone

Not every termite in the yard belongs in a feed bucket. The reason is not taste. It is what the insect has been living on, and what has been sprayed on the ground around its home.

• Collect only the winged swarmers that come to the lamp. Leave the mound workers and soldiers, which have large jaws and are hard to clean.
• Do not harvest from a mound beside a field that has been sprayed in the last few weeks, or one near a stored pesticide drum.
• Avoid mounds next to a dump, a pit latrine or a heap of litter with dead birds in it.
• Do not dig out a mound to get at the queen. Leave the colony in place so the swarm comes back next year.

Dead or damaged termites go off quickly. If the catch smells of ammonia or feels slimy when you pick it up, throw it away. No termite is worth the risk to the flock.

Cleaning, killing and drying without losing the fat

Clean first. Tip the catch into a sieve and rinse it quickly in clean water to take off soil, dead insects and grit. Drain it, then spread it on a mesh tray or clean sack in the shade for a few minutes so the surface water runs off. Do not leave the termites soaking, because soaking is how the fat starts to go.

Then dry them. Sun drying works well on a dry, breezy day when the sun is strong, provided you turn the tray and bring the termites in before the dew or the next shower. A small oven on low heat or a warm, ventilated store also works. What you want is brittle and dry with no soft centres. A termite that bends rather than snaps still has water in it, and water is where mould starts.

1. Rinse quickly in clean water, then drain well.
2. Spread thinly on mesh, away from dust and away from the dogs.
3. Dry until brittle, turning the tray at intervals.
4. Cool completely before you bag them.
5. Grind to a coarse meal in a mill or pound it in a mortar, then sieve.

Our rule on the farm is simple. If the drying runs past a day and a half, the batch is not worth keeping. Start again on the next dry afternoon.

The risks you cannot see on the tray

Wild insects are not clean. They can carry bacteria picked up from the soil and, in some cases, the eggs of worms. Insects can also act as intermediate hosts for the tapeworms that live in chicken guts, which is why a free-range flock that eats a lot of insects needs its worming done on schedule. Our tapeworm guide explains the cycle, and your vet can tell you what to use and when.

Pesticide is the bigger worry. If a termite mound sits in a field that has been sprayed, the insects can carry residues. You will not see them, smell them or taste them. Stick to the rule above and collect from mounds in clean ground.

Keep the sieve, the tray and the scoop for termites only. Wear a dust mask when you grind a large batch, and store the finished meal in a sealed container in a dry store, away from the rest of the feed. Damp dust spreads moulds across the bin very quickly.

How much to put in the mash, stage by stage

This is where most farmers go wrong. A bowl of termites looks like a great deal of protein, so they add plenty. Put termite meal in at a few per cent, weigh the feed, and watch the birds for two weeks before you change anything else.

These are ceilings for well-dried, sweet-smelling meal. They are not targets. If you cannot test the protein or the fat, drop to the bottom of each range and stay there.

A worked example for a 300-bird layer flock

Take a house of 300 layers. A laying hen eats somewhere around 100 to 120 grams of mash a day, so the house needs about 33 kilograms of mash daily. At 2 per cent termite meal, that is roughly 0.66 kilograms of dried meal every day, or about 20 kilograms a month.

Now count the catch. Dried termites lose most of their weight as water, so it takes several kilograms of fresh, wet insects to make one kilogram of dried meal. A good night at the lamp gives you a basin, and a basin shrinks more than you would think once it has dried. That is why the swarm is a supplement and not a plan. Most farmers who try it keep a tally on the wall: nights, kilograms fresh, kilograms dried.

If you cannot cover twenty kilograms a month from the swarm, do not fill the gap with a stranger's sack of unknown insects. Use the termites for the free-range birds and the scratch, and keep the layer mash on a tested formula.

Termites or insect larvae: which one is worth your time

A lot of people ask whether wild termites are worth bothering with when black soldier fly larvae can be grown in a bin. The honest answer is that they do different jobs. Larvae you raise yourself are predictable, you control what they eat, and they can be fed fresh or dried all year. Termites are free, seasonal and wild, so they suit a small free-range flock better than a commercial layer shed.

If you want to know more about the larvae route, read our black soldier fly guide before you build a bin. Either way, the protein you add is only one part of the feed.

The mistakes we see most often with wild termites

• Feeding fresh, unwashed catches straight from the lamp, so the flock gets soil, wings and fermentation in one bowl.
• Adding the meal to day-old chick starter because the protein figure looks high.
• Drying in the wet, so the batch is mouldy by the end of the week.
• Letting the swarm replace the layer mash altogether. Egg size falls, shells thin, and the flock goes off feed.
• Forgetting the worming schedule, then blaming the termites for a flock that was already carrying worms.

Most of these come from good intentions. The termites are free, so the farmer assumes more is better. More is almost always worse.

A checklist before you start catching termites

• The flock is past the chick stage and on a complete, tested feed.
• You know which mounds are clean, and you have looked at the fields around them.
• You have a lamp, a white sheet or basin, a sieve, a mesh tray and a sealed container.
• You can dry the catch within a day, on a dry afternoon or in a warm store.
• Your worming is up to date, and your vet knows you feed insects.
• You are logging how much you add to each batch of mash.

Where a hatchery fits into a termite-fed flock

We are a day-old chick hatchery in Opeikuma, Kasoa, so we do not sell termites, feed ingredients or lamps. What we do supply is the bird. Guinea fowl are famous termite hunters, and our guinea fowl keets are a natural fit for a flock that scratches for its insects.

A Kuroiler or Noiler from us suits a free-range set-up that forages well and keeps growing on a mixed diet. For a layer house that depends on a steady mash, a laying strain is the better fit. Our Kuroiler and Noiler chicks and our layer chicks are both sold by the box of 50, and you can see the current starting prices on our prices page.

If you are still choosing a breed, our breeds page sets out the differences. We deliver to all 16 regions, and chicks leave the day they hatch. You can confirm the delivery cost before you pay. When you are ready, place your order here or WhatsApp +233 24 915 1503.

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