Anyone using black soldier flies?

[aldarita]

Wow you are doing great with your grub production ! Are you planning to continue to harvest them throughout the winter? I have been debating about that. I found out that some of my girls don't eat the grubs when I have put them in the fridge and they are cold and inactive ???? I guess they like them squirming all the time

so I will have to somehow keep on harvesting from the biopod instead of getting a big batch to put in a container in the fridge. My 2 roosters are fine with the ones from the fridge.
Last year I was getting a pretty wet mash because I gave them all sorts of kitchen left overs so this time, I am giving them dried food like bread, tortillas, bananas, etc. I found out that the more variety of food you give them, the more nutrients they are going to have which makes it great for the chickens good nutrition.
Keep us posted.

 

[RichnSteph]

I am planning on harvesting through the winter if I can keep the temps up. Yesterday I refilled with 30lbs of feed and this morning had a few hundred grubs in the harvesting buckets and the feed was just gone like it'd never been added. I also noticed that I get a better harvest the morning after I stir the bin up.I'm hoping to get some work done insulating it this week.

RichnSteph

This is one sides harvest from this morning. If I can keep this up through winter I'll be crazy happy.

 

[aldarita]

OK so I insulated my grubs room today. DH let me use a heater he used last winter that has a green house thermostat (he used it to keep our beloved Meyer lemon tree from freezing last winter, it was loaded with lemons and didn't want to lose them in the first freeze). I fed them very well this afternoon and they should be very cozy tonight, I checked them while ago and they were 85F in their little room and I could hear them eating. Hopefully they will start self harvesting soon.
That is a pretty nice crop you are getting right now, yeah let's hope it keeps like that thru the winter.

 

[RichnSteph]

I'm getting zero self harvest right now. I turned the bin today and found several black mature grubs in the corners of my bin just sitting there. Too cold outside I think. I still have several thousands of younger grubs in the bin and have been harvesting them myself for the chickens. The plan now is to put in a brooder for the mature grubs inside the bin so that some of them hatch out and mate. I still feed them several pounds of grain each day so I know they are eating and growing but I've seen fewer and fewer early stage grubs. I hope I can keep it running through the cold. The mash pile still steams when I tune in even in 60 degree weather so I know it's warm enough inside the bin. Come spring I'll probably have more larvae that I can feed.... I just hope they make it through the winter.

RIchnSteph

 

[Bobbymac29649]

I'm curious what the inside of everyone's biopod looks like. Mine is a swampy gross mess, yet there are larvae in there. Mine drains down into a 2 ft. deep gravel filled hole but inside it's like a bowl of chili. No matter what I put in there they seem to turn it into wet mush...

 

[aldarita]

That is exactly how the inside of my biopods look like. Last year I was successful using the filter and strainer plate at the bottom of my first biopod, I used to extract the "tea" every 2 or three days this would keep the mash not so liquid, however this year the filters didn't work (the larvae went thru the filters and got trapped in there) so I took them off. One time it got so soupy that I thought they would drown in it but they didn't, they still climbed into the harvest bucket.
This year I have been trying to feed them with food that won't produce a lot of moisture so it looks "better" another thing that I do, I don't give them animal scraps just vegetables, this keeps the smell down a bit.

 

[RichnSteph]

Although I don't have a biopod (our bin is 6' long, 2' wide and 1.5' deep) I can attest that the material in there is pretty damp. I have started using a hand rake to turn the pile once a day so that the wet material gets rolled to the surface and the drain holes can actually work. None of our grubs seem to dislike the wet conditions and they are still in there by the thousands. I even had a couple of adult females in there laying eggs today so even damp it's still attractive to them. I don't know what ya'll are feeding that could make it that wet. We feed all of our kitchen scraps, to include meat leftovers, but our main feed is used brewers grain that I sourced locally and that stuff is damp to begin with. Maybe you could turn it once a week or so to help it air out a bit? I turn ours and leave it in a big pile in the middle of the bin and within a few hours the grubs have moved it around and leveled it all back out. Since ours is outside I do prefer it a little more damp for heat retention and it drains directly into our hot compost bin which is attached to the BSF bin via a small plenum.

RichnSteph

 

[RichnSteph]

Update on the BSF bin we have. Went out this morning to feed and after a few warm days I had female BSF in the bin laying eggs, maybe 10-15 of them so we're hoping for enough to keep the bin running through winter. So far the self harvest has fallen off to three or four per side although I get more if I stir the bin each day. I've been hand harvesting and the darn chickens go nuts when I open the bin and start picking. I think the warm grubs are a nice treat for them. I've been taking one or two of the mature larvae out of the collection buckets putting them in the soil in parts of the yard that get full sunlight for most of the day. Hoping I can keep them warm and get them to keep maturing and mating.

RichnSteph.

 

[aldarita]

I have not seen an adult BSF for a while. Now that temps have fallen even more, my heater is not keeping up (temp today was 60 in the biopods room) All the larvae have buried way deep in the mash and I am getting very few grubs self harvesting. I am thinking that this is it for the winter. Since this is an experiment I am doing, I will leave the heater on to keep them from freezing and see what happens when it warms up. Too bad I cannot get any more grubs for my girls, they need them so bad because they are molting and need some extra animal protein. I am giving them fish pellets but they don't like them as much as the grubs, they go absolutely crazy for them.

RichnSteph, how are you doing with yours????

 

[RichnSteph]

aldarita,

Not much better I'm sorry to say. The chickens really do love those things. Weekend before last we had a 65 degree day with a light rain and the next morning I had about a pound of them in the harvesting bins. That afternoon I turned the entire bin and dumped 30lbs of brewers grain back in there for them to munch on. That week it dropped to near freezing at night and up around 50 during the day and the crawl off has pretty much stopped. I still get a few here and there but not enough to matter in the chickens diet. I did notice something that might help you, and since I'm not sure what all you put in your bin this might be something to try. I noticed that when we throw meat scraps in there that the grubs get really active on the pieces and the heat increases just a bit. I'll usually see a few crawling off the morning after we throw in the meat. I put a meals worth of chicken in there (fat, skin, bones, etc) and that spot was the only place where the grubs were active enough to make the surface of the material move. Tonight I dropped maybe 3lbs of old catfish in there for them and am looking forward to how they've handled it in the morning. Anytime I add food waste I make sure and bury it rather deeply in the bin. I have to laugh at the chickens since every time I open the bin to check the collection buckets I have fluffy hens and one fluffy rooster standing at the fence making noises at me. You can almost see the disappointment in their eyes when the buckets come up empty. For a while there I was throwing a shovel full of grain and grubs in for them but I'm worried about losing too much heat out of the bin when I do that.

I noticed when I turned the entire thing that there was about 4" of grubs all along the bottom and they were active but sluggish. Many of the ones in the bottom are the black ones that should be self harvesting so I'm guessing they are all going dormant for the year.

We also ramped up our turning and watering of the compost pile under the bin and that thing is steaming some mornings so I'm hoping that will help keep at least some of the grubs alive through the winter so that I'll have some mating going on come spring.

Keep your fingers crossed.

RichnSteph.