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Soldier grub bin under poultry coop. How sanitary are soldier grubs?

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Robert Oliver is the son of Dr. Paul Oliver who is one of the leading researchers of soldier grubs and I think the developer of the BioPod. Robert says that if we raise grubs in manure, the manure should be fresh and we should not feed them to the same genus of animal who produced the manure. I don't know why these two prescriptions are made but someone claims that parasitic roundworm eggs can stick to the grubs, and that it is easier to kill the parasite eggs when they are less than a few weeks old. Now I'm actually thinking I should explore this a little more before bringing solder flies into this area. Soldier grubs have many benefits to high-temperature composting, but if pathogens can stick to them, it seems possible that certain pathogens could survive when they wouldn't have otherwise.

You might want to consider feeding chickens, grubs raised on kitchen waste, other animal manure, or humanure, and using the poultry manure (pre)pupae for selling (eBay), hatching (make more grub eggs), etc. Otherwise boiling them would make them certainly safe to feed poultry, I would think.
 
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Good point, Lumenos. I read not to give chickens bsfl raised on their own manure, so I won't be putting any in my bucket. I only have a small amount of manure in my main compost pile, so I will let the chickens eat those that they find in there. Their poop is getting the deep litter treatment in the coop now anyway.

My colony is just getting started, but when it's in full swing I plan to put everything but chicken poop in there. Except for some veggie scraps for the red wigglers. And some for the mealworms. And of course I can't starve my main compost pile, because that's my source of maggots if I kill the colony.

If you are in Southern California, there may well be bfs around there already. I had noticed the adults for years around here (Austin, TX) but didn't know what they were and never saw the grubs until I looked for them. Also, I had just happened to have turned and watered my compost pile before I looked and the moist, warm centerish part of the pile was teeming with them. We are in hardiness zone 8b. My compost pile is a good mix of fresh green stuff and dry brown stuff and all kinds of veggie scraps.

I can't wait to play 'guess what's in this bucket' with visitors.
 
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Practically speaking the only way you'll kill the colony is if you allow them to overheat with no way to escape. Even if that did happen you don't necessarily need another instant source of larvae because there will be egg laden females ready to restart your bin.

I've received several reports of BSF in S. Cal., even inland in dry areas and at elevations of 3500 feet.
 
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For all I know, it may be possible to completely sanitize manure, with BSFL in it, using hot composting or deep litter, but I'm just not sure yet. I'm still working on a thread to post on the BioPod fourm, although I keep mentioning this in other threads because it may be important.

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I'm not sure if you mean you won't put manure or the BSFL, in the bucket. If you really want to be sure you aren't getting ascaris eggs in the bucket, you have to be careful not to let anything contact anything that has contacted feces. The eggs are sticky and can last for years. They are the most difficult pathogen to kill. Bleach won't kill them but it removes their stickiness so they can be washed off. It takes cooking heat, hot (grubless?) compost (over 113 degrees for a week or over 120 degrees for 24 hours (source)), iodine, (rubbing?) alcohol, or specialized chemicals.

You can make egg traps by cutting pieces of cardboard into 2" x 4" pieces and gluing three of them together. They like to lay their eggs in the edges. Tape them above, where you usually see the soldier flies, or your clean container.

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That will be interesting.
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Redworms have less fat than BSF pupae, so they seem to make a good compliment.
 
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Practically speaking the only way you'll kill the colony is if you allow them to overheat with no way to escape. Even if that did happen you don't necessarily need another instant source of larvae because there will be egg laden females ready to restart your bin.

Thanks geedub. I've read BSFL are weak fliers, so it is still a decision I should research a bit more, before jumping into bringing them to this property. They clearly have a number of benefits, and I'm pretty sure they would do more good than harm, but I want to make the most informed decision I can.

If I know how to eliminate a colony (besides putting all manures and kitchen wastes in the garbage bins or toilets), I would be taking less of a risk bringing BSFL to this property. I may want to use the soldier grubs for some kitchen waste, but not manure. I may want to use them for humanure but not poultry manure. If I could raise BSFL and keep them from getting into other compost piles or (worm) bins, that might be desirable.

It seems that house fly maggots are easier to eliminate from hot compost. I have had at least a few of them and they disappear when the compost gets hot. Perhaps they are hatching and leaving but maybe they don't return because housefly eggs have to be laid on the manure itself? I was using a no-turn method, because my square wood "bin" contained humanure. Might soldier grubs turn a pile up and expose the manure? If so, could this be prevented if enough cover material is used, or if it gets hot enough?

It seems it may be possible to remove the grubs by adding grass clippings and carbon to increase heat, but this may be difficult or impractical (to put all of it into bins). Another possible problem with eliminating them from humanure composting; it isn't turned, so the bottom becomes cooler than the top. There might be a problem for those who use their humanure for vegetable garden/crop fertilizer, for example, if any of the poop donors may have parasitic worms. I started a thread to ask what other type of fecal-born pathogens may not have obvious symptoms, but I should probably find a more active forum/newsgroup on microbiology, etc.

Compost Latrines in Rural Panama: Design, Construction and Evaluation of Pathogen
Removal - Copyright
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Daniel Hurtado 2005 :


Despite the benefits, most latrine users would like to eliminate any type of “worm” in
their latrine. Soldier flies are attracted by smells produced by excess nitrogen in the
compost, so adding a carbon-rich soak material can reduce the likelihood of the breeding
of maggots. Several latrine users in the Ño Kribu region informed the author that a
reduction in maggots could be achieved by adding a few cupfuls of ash. This is most
likely due to the increase in pH that creates unsuitable conditions for larvae survival. "

I'm not sure if that would work for less moist "open compost" but it may help both for maintaining or eliminating soldier grubs.​
 
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Lumenos, I just meant that I wouldn't put chicken poop in the bsfl bucket to avoid contamination of chicken treats. The grubs I started with came from a compost bin with a small amount of poop in it, but I am planning to give them mostly leftover food. I plan to use the chicken poop as fertilizer for the garden.
 
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I suppose it will eventually be free of pathogens such as roundworm eggs. I was a little worried that would sound preachy again. It seems that BSFL might be very good for certain pathogens (roundworm or Ascaris eggs) or it might be very bad for them. At this point it seems possible that there is a way to raise BSFL in poultry manure, so that they might be safely fed to poultry. The harvested pupae could obviously be heated to kill pathogens. I finally finished the post I have been working on; it branches out into three other threads. The summary thread is named "Do BSFL ever reduce the sanitation of bacterial composting?"

The nutritional aspects are also important. Is better to feed something directly to chickens or use it to grow BSFL and feed those to chickens? I compiled some clues to help solve this riddle, here.
 
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The BioPod forum has become unavailable for at least the past day. This is the first time that I have noticed it go down. Perhaps geedub has heard something about what is happening.

I will be posting updates on this information here, here, or in this forum.
 
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This statement from my first post was way off:
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I have since learned that soldier grubs seem to have about the same heat tolerance as these roundworm eggs, but they are rumored to crawl away from temperatures around 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This [may have] important implications for the sanitation of compost containing soldier grubs and certain persistent pathogens such as parasitic roundworm eggs.
 
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They don't thrive at 150º, they must be staying in cooler areas on the fringe of the pile. - "Maximum w/Survival: Larvae survive at temperatures up to 45 C (113 F). (1)"

Err, I'm not sure I am even remembering correctly. It was a post by [Rob Ludlow (Nifty-Chicken)]. He may have said 115 degrees. I can't find it now. It may have been a comment on your blog, or a post in this forum.

Found it!
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He did say 150 degrees! http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/2008/06/09/earthworm-plus-black-soldier-fly-larvae/#comment-22 :

"Nifty-Chicken" :

Next to this bin I’ve got a mix of 1/4 compost and 3/4 horse manure & pine shavings (http://www.theeasygarden.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=207658#p207658) . This pile has exploded with BSF larvae. I’m very surprised they are doing so well because this compost pile is hot… I mean REALLY HOT at about 150 degrees. Worms hate this heat, but the BSFL’s seem to love it."

This seems like it could be very important to questions such as whether compost containing BSFL is more or less sanitary than compost without BSFL.

I wish you could remember how you took this temperature.

I'm also very interested in how the grubs reacted to that. They supposedly will crawl away from temps around 100 degrees. This seems like it could be very important to preventing stealthy parasites. I explain why I think so in my wiki. (I explain/question it in much greater depth on the BioPod forum, but that is down presently.)​
 
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