Anyone using black soldier flies?



Is this what you're seeing? They do have a jerky flight, not very good flyers. White 'feet' and a metallic sheen to their wings, often blue. With the cartoon style antennae? If yes, then a bucket with food scraps and coffee grounds should attract them. Keep out of full sun, give some sort of semi lid just to make it more attractive and use strong smelling scraps - the coffee should work well. The eggs are laid in a tight cream colored cluster, not on the food, but above it. Some people use corrugated cardboard, but the females who visit my bins just put their eggs on the inside of the bins. Grubs will take 100 hours to hatch and are very tiny at first. They will mature into pupae in 10 days or more depending on conditions. The darker pupae are ideal for your hens. There are 2 forums for BSF online plus many youtube videos and various websites. Wonderful composters and your chickens will thank you for it!
 
I have about 6or 7 of what I am assuming are BSF flying around my back door a lot. Do they have a jerky flight? Anyway. My question is can I start a bucket of fruits and veggie scraps and place close to the area and attract the BSF and then have the larvae. Is it that easy? And if flies get in a I have maggots is that bad for my chickens?
Thanks
yes. Keep the food damp and in the shade. We get 1,000's of them in our passive compost bin every years during august. It was an accident the first summer but now I leave something yummy for them. They seem to like laying eggs in avocado shells. They are almost always brimming with larva. I never see maggots in my bin but Chickens eat can eat maggots.
 
Count me in the wanna be BSF army. I found a whole platoon in my compost bin this summer and hand picked a few for the girls. They loved them. But it was too much work harvesting by hand so I'm thinking of giving the bucket bin a try.
I love that you called them a "platoon"!
I'm a bit late on the bandwagon. The link is 10 yrs old.
I want to make it in a bucket, but am having trouble finding a good plan to go with...
 

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