Tuesday, June 28, 2016

[wnjsemlg] Bug zapper hopper for chickens (or fish)

The bug zapper kills a lot of bugs at night and scatters the vaporized insect bodies over a large area below the device.  Chickens can come and feed on the bits in the day (as seen in one YouTube video).

Unfortunately, ants, active at night, might get to the bug bits before the chickens wake up (as seen in another YouTube video).

Create some sort of bug bits collection hopper shielded from ants that can hold the chicken feed until morning.  Difficulties: the bugs explode and get propelled at high speed, so the hopper must either be large or enclose; however, we do not want to obstruct the path for bugs to enter, or their view of the light.  Exploded bugs are sticky, so we need a way for the bugs to be scraped off the surface of the hopper.  Maybe the chickens can do it themselves.

An alternate idea (seen elsewhere) is to hang the bug zapper over a pond and let the bug bits feed fish, then harvest the fish.  The bug zapper needs to periodically be cleaned and maintained, so we need some way of accessing it: perhaps some swinging pole or line with pulley, like for laundry.

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