What Grasshoppers Eat and Key Feeding Points for Artificial Breeding

Grasshopper is the common name for locusts, which belong to the order Orthoptera and are widely distributed in China, with common types including the migratory locust, the Chinese rice grasshopper, and the cotton grasshopper. It is a typical phytophagous insect with chewing mouthparts, and throughout its life it feeds mainly on the green parts of plants.

Wild grasshoppers favor the tender leaves of gramineous plants, such as corn, wheat, rice, sorghum, millet, and various common field weeds, and sometimes they also nibble on sugarcane leaves and vegetable leaves such as cabbage and radish. Because they eat a lot and reproduce quickly, once population density becomes too high they can easily harm crops, which is also the cause of locust plagues.

When raising grasshoppers artificially, forage grasses such as ryegrass, Mexican corn grass, king grass, and Sudan grass are usually planted specifically as feed, and the forage must be fresh, clean, and free of pesticide residues. Feeding should be done at fixed times and in fixed amounts; fresh grass carrying water after rain should be dried before feeding, otherwise it can easily cause gastrointestinal disease and death, and leftover feed in the shed should also be cleaned up promptly to maintain sanitary conditions.

Grasshoppers have a relatively high protein content, can serve as a specialty food ingredient, and can also be processed into feed raw materials. Because their feeding habits are simple, the breeding cycle is short, and they require little space, in recent years many rural areas have developed a grasshopper breeding industry, which has become a new way for farmers to increase income and become prosperous.