Any such thing as too many black soldier fly larvae

[U_Stormcrow]

Yes. Tried BSFL. Too hot here Or wrong location. or something else. I have a commercial cricket farm up the road, if I was truly needy. (they raise them under climate control in a HUGE building. I could place my house, my RV, the car, the tractor in it, and still have room for an 18 wheeler or three....)

 

[Scooter-jedi]

THAT is an excellent start. Strawberries are mostly water, good sources of vitamin C and magnesium, not a heck of a lot else.. If your chickens were given nothing but strawberry plants to eat, that would be a problem - the chickens would eat to imbalance, because they had no choice. Tommorow or the next day, you might offer some veggies (or peels), or a legume, or a near grain, or a grain, or a pulse. Variety. That will also help ensure that what might be imbalanced on one day averages out over time.

Or, you could not treat them at all. It isn't necessary, but it is satisfying.

and I should have done more research for my BSFL farm. Step one, don't use a black barrel (all I had). More shade would have helped too. possibly I started too small, as well (not enoiugh volume to moderate temperature changes? I've given it a lot of thought, but haven't come up with any satisfying answers.

Whatever you decide, I wish you every fortune in it.

A good summertime treat is the rind of watermelon. Freeze some of the left over rinds to give to your birds. They'll peck and eat them all the way down leaving just the outer skin as they thaw on a hot summer day. A nice cool hydrating treat your birds will enjoy.

If your chickens eat/stomp down most of the greenery in your run, you could build them a salad bar box. A wooden frame resting on the ground made of 2X8 or 2X10 lumber with chicken wire or 1 1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch grid wire fencing stapled/nailed to the topside with a couple inches of decent soil/compost to grow greens in. The size of it may depend on the number of chickens you have in the run. Of course you could expand what ever you have by just building more salad bar boxes in other areas of the run. Growing a variety of chicken friendly greens will ensure they will still have access to greens... even if they destroy everything else in the run down to the last blade of grass. The fencing prevents them from scatching away the dirt and digging the plants out by the roots and the fencing also prevents them from being able to get at the plants all the way down to the ground.

One of the things I grow for the chickens here is comfrey which can withstand a lot of pecking... It just keeps growng back no matter how many of the leaves they get to... as long as they can't reach all the way down to the ground through the fencing. Any chicken poo will just fall through and fertilize whatever you get growing there. Plant your seeds and water the greens as you would maintain any garden. It will be fun to watch your birds occasionally gather and congregate atop the salad bar boxes and nosh happily as if it were a social event... and maybe it would be to them

 

[Heatherf23]

I know that chickens are not supposed to eat more than 10% of their diet in treats. What is considered a treat? If a chicken free ranges, it eats lots of bugs. Is that a treat? Is there a difference between the bugs that chickens eat free-ranging, and black soldier fly larva? I guess what is considered a treat? Fruits and vegetables? Or anything outside of their commercial feed? If it's anything outside of their commercial feed, how do you limit a free-ranging chicken from the only having 10%

I was very educated today when I took a chicken to an exclusive avian only vet. I took her there because I believed my 9 older girls had vent gleet. Their bums always had white discharge. I've had chickens for 25 years and never any issues. I learned today they do not in fact have vent gleet. They are too fat causing their droppings to end up in their feathers. Up until about two years ago, they were only given a complete organic layer pellet, occasional scratch feed, fresh veggies and fruit and maybe some bugs. Then we started reading what people posted on facebook. We started giving them all of our left overs. When they say you are what you eat, I more than ever get it now. My chickens are simply too fat. This vet explained they should only get a good complete feed, fresh fruits and veggies (but no kale) and a small amount of grains/corns as a treat, less than 10% of their diet should be treats. My avian vet is quite seasoned now but shared some studies she did right out of college. She took crickets from pet stores, soldier fly larvae and mealworms and fed them to reptiles. The reptiles were dying from extreme lack of protein and low nutritional value of the store raised live insects. She said the live bugs they eat are wonderful. Anytime our chickens eat anything other than their layer feed, they should also be given age appropriate grit. Hope that helps.

 

[Altairsky]

If that is true, my chickens should have died literally decades ago.
I feed my chickens *suet* and they're still skinny. Chickens who free range eat whatever they want, and whatever they eat is good for them. Free ranging chickens are like a tribe in the Amazon, all the calories they eat are burned. Chickens confined in a run are like bored kids that spend all their life closed in their room playing videogames with food available 24/7. If they don't follow a perfect diet, they'll end up visiting Dr. Now.

 

[ChaosMom]

I don’t think that you two are necessarily disagreeing. Heather’s vet is describing optimum nutrition for those (many) of us who can’t let our birds free-range. You’re describing the nutrition that fully free-ranging birds receive. My three are now “yard-ranging,” out 6-8 hours a day in the backyard under supervision, with many fewer options in forage.

With chicken nutrition + different options in chicken rearing, there are many roads to Dublin.

I value all the posts from those here who have acreage, not square-footage, on which their chickens can roam, and I’ve learned a ton from all y’all. But every now and again, I have to check the forum title to make sure: yep, Backyard Chickens.

It would be nice if we’d all remember to give some grace to those with differing situations from our own.