Black soldier fly

[Cluckerzfamilyfarm]

So I have been raising black soldier flies for my chicken's as part of their 0$ diet lol. Yes I feed my chickens for free. Chicks do get the starter feed so they get what they need to grow and then they are on their own. I was wondering how many weeks would you say is safe to toss some treats once in awhile? No fruits or veggies. Just bugs. I need them to know what to look for on their own in my fields like the others. They are going on 3weeks now. I feel as if they are big enough just wanted to double check with the pros as I'm still learning.

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

I give clicks bugs from day 1. That's what they are created to eat.

 

[Cluckerzfamilyfarm]

That's how I feel about it too. That's why I let mine free range and compost. I just wasnt to sure oh how little they start. Thank you for your help.

 

[trescloudy]

So I have been raising black soldier flies for my chicken's as part of their 0$ diet lol. Yes I feed my chickens for free. Chicks do get the starter feed so they get what they need to grow and then they are on their own. I was wondering how many weeks would you say is safe to toss some treats once in awhile? No fruits or veggies. Just bugs. I need them to know what to look for on their own in my fields like the others. They are going on 3weeks now. I feel as if they are big enough just wanted to double check with the pros as I'm still learning.

I dig the BSF breeding plan. I have a half gallon Mason jar full of black larvae that are trying to get out today.

I need to let them out so they can finish out and lay eggs. Gotta build a screened in area and put in something they are attracted to so they will lay eggs.

Do they have to finish in soil? How many days until they turn into flies?

 

[MNnative]

I dig the BSF breeding plan. I have a half gallon Mason jar full of black larvae that are trying to get out today.

I need to let them out so they can finish out and lay eggs. Gotta build a screened in area and put in something they are attracted to so they will lay eggs.

Do they have to finish in soil? How many days until they turn into flies?

Just curious did you end up getting any adult flies to lay eggs? It is my understanding that the mating and egg laying part is the most difficult part.

 

[trescloudy]

Just curious did you end up getting any adult flies to lay eggs? It is my understanding that the mating and egg laying part is the most difficult part.

I think I did but it was very low level. I did this experiment in my house and would get a fly or 2 hatching here and there for months after the initial waves. I plan to continue on with the experiment this year in a small greenhouse. Keeping plants in the breeding is supposed to help. We'll see.

 

[MNnative]

My flies that were hatching from old feeder BSFL. He won't really eat them anymore once they are no longer moving. Once they get mature enough to no longer need food, some times when they crawl off they end up hidden someplace. If I find them I put them back in his food dish. This time they must have been an "older batch" because many were quite dark and generally they were pretty inactive. Several must have escaped his dish soon after I cleaned his tank. Within a few days I saw a few flies, at most I've only had one or two here or there hatch in the past. I guess some reptiles eat them by my lazy dragon has no interest what so ever. They were doing so my bearded dragon's 4x2x2 tank. I have some plants he can eat in there. I mist his tank twice daily so it is pretty dry and warm but there is intermittent moisture for them. I noticed when I would mist the tank the flies would get more active. Once I saw more than one out I put them into a small separate bin we initially bought for crickets. I put in some food scraps and misted it when I misted his tank, twice each day, and looked up how to encourage them to lay eggs, best food source for the newborn BSFL and things like that. It didn't seem to be going anywhere really so I figured I'd order him some more live feeders. I decided to look into ordering newborn BSFL this time. In the meantime I put in the remaining BSFL from the tub of feeders I'd bought. Several flies had hatched in there but were too crowded. Based on the info I'd found while doing research, I adjusted things a bit in the small bin I was keeping them in before I added the last of them in. I did not realize (at the time) that BSFL don't eat paper/woodbased products. So I used shredded newspaper as a base thinking it would be a food source later, and mixed up some pretty wet mush with random grains I have in my kitchen to be newborn feed. I placed that in a clear plastic cup with a ridge on it which I found in our recycling bin in the center of the bin and I placed cardboard pieces suspended from the top. I started keeping the bin mostly either in our bearded dragon's tank or near windows or above his tank for both warmth and sunlight.

So a week or so later, all the mature BSFL had since hatched and died. I had as many as three or four flies alive in the bin at a time from what I recall. But it still seemed like nothing was going on where the flies had been. I just kept it set-up as is since I had thousands of new BSFL on the way that were to be arriving within a few days. When those arrived and I started moving things around more in that bin in order to add the new BSFL I realized there were some small ones already in there. Since I now had an hugely abundant supply of BSFL anyway I did not bother to try to find out how many there were, if there were various sizes of them or anything like that, I just added about 1/2 of the newly arrived BSFL in there added additional moisture and food sources and the experiment was off. I put them in a few other locations, so I could monitor how they responded in different environments etc... and started documenting things so I could remember details later on.

They are getting mature enough that if I keep them inside, and even warm them up by putting them near the heat vent I think that I may even have some begin to crawl off from the food source as prepupae. Now to finish coming up with a plan for the adult flies. Trying to decide on whether or not I should have just one setting for them, since it seemed to work last time on a small scale, or if I should have multiple scenarios. If so what changes do I want to make? How many different settings do I want to have, etc... And most importantly what to do with the huge amount of sizeable BSFL I am finding myself with. There is no way our dragon will eat that many before they mature. Plus he is looking more and more like he is about to go into brumation, I'm trying to get him to finish shedding, and get him into the vet first. The nice thing about it being winter though is that I can get the BSFL to go dormant by putting them in a cold location for awhile to make them last longer.