Easy Cultivation of Black Soldier Fly Larvae

[Chicken Quest]

I'd send you a picture of my feet (I often work barefoot), but that's perhaps too graphic.

Actually, we have very few ants at all, and fewer still are fire ants, but yes, I've met a couple on the property. We also have "cowkillers", a very attractive and solitary flightless wasp.

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[picture is NOT one of mine, mine are a little more orange/less red, and of course so is my soil - not the lovely white sand shown above]

Honestly, I'm fond of swarming day, after rains, when our subterranean termites burrow up to the surface for mating flights. My chickens wait at the little skinny pencil holes the termites make in the ground and consume them as they come up! I suspect they've done something similar with the ants, we have fewer this year than last.

Their sting can cause severe pain and paralysis. Bee careful.






See what I did there? Because wasps and bees are both arthropods. . . .

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

When I was a child I used to catch cow killers (we call them “bull ants”) in jars and poke at them to make them buzz. They were regarded right up there with rattlesnakes and black widows and dangerous creepy crawlies to avoid.

As an adult I have been stung by a cow killer and didn’t find it that remarkable. I do not know if I am somewhat immune to them or if she simply didn’t get a good dose of venom into me.

Most insects that bite I’ve developed immunity to over the years. I can’t feel the bites of most mosquito species and don’t get welts. Yellow flies no longer itch and all I feel is the pinch of their mouth parts. I’ve never developed an immunity to the sting of the fire ant. I always have little pimples from their stings on my feet.

I do believe that the ecosystems of Florida are adapting to them. They’re ever present on the peninsula but aren’t as quick to eat healthy animals as I remember them doing in childhood. When I was a child fire ants would swarm hatching chicks and turtles, even digging down to get turtles as they came out of the shell. I haven’t seen that in some time.

There are granule baits that are effective at controlling fire ants but the active ingredient is terrible for wetlands. My farm is a high pine ridge and hammock that juts out into lowlands and the runoff of my place goes right into the river drainage system. Therefore I don’t use much in the way of insecticide on my farm.

My chickens will eat fire ants on occasion but its hit and miss. Its usually chicks that prefer them.

 

[NatJ]

I **am** going to make a go at this - but not until I can build hanging rabbit cages (not currently in the budget), and fence off the space underneath the cages to repeat your methods, but with spilled waste from feeding the bunnies.

Two points I see:

--Chickens will sometimes eat spilled rabbit food directly, without needing to grow maggots in it. So letting the chickens forage under the rabbit cages might be more efficient and less labor than trying to exclude them and grow maggots.

--Rabbits are usually fed a diet based on hay, while chickens are usually fed a grain-based diet (this applies to the ingredients in the pelleted or crumbled feed, as well many of the common unprocessed things fed to each species.) I don't know whether the maggots would care, but if they do, you might not get such good production from them.

Of course you can still try it, and I'll certainly be curious to see the results

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Two points I see:

--Chickens will sometimes eat spilled rabbit food directly, without needing to grow maggots in it. So letting the chickens forage under the rabbit cages might be more efficient and less labor than trying to exclude them and grow maggots.

--Rabbits are usually fed a diet based on hay, while chickens are usually fed a grain-based diet (this applies to the ingredients in the pelleted or crumbled feed, as well many of the common unprocessed things fed to each species.) I don't know whether the maggots would care, but if they do, you might not get such good production from them.

Of course you can still try it, and I'll certainly be curious to see the results

I'm feeding my rabbits a mix of pelleted feed specifically for them and fresh greens from my pasture, but yes, its something I've kept in mind which suggests the reality won't be as promising as the theory. and if I don't exclude the chickens, I'll never find out. I can always remove the fencing later if it doesn't pan out - but it may be a way (assuming I locate the rabbits far enough from the human structures) to put things (like goat parts I can't use) for recycling into something the animals can make use of.

Though honestly, the chickens did pick that carcass pretty clean, what I missed witht he knife work.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

The only reason I do this with the BFS is because I’m already brooding the chicks anyhow and the maggots act like a cleanup crew for the brooder in addition to being food for the chicks. When the maggot density is high they’ll rise to the top of the litter at night and eat down and turn over the chick manure, keeping the bedding fresh.

If I was only dealing with free range, hen raised, chicks, I wouldn’t see a point, except perhaps for raising them as fish bait for my farm ponds. The conditions by which the BSF maggots thrive come directly about by having large amounts of protected poultry manure languishing around from brooding young chickens in confined spaces.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

The only reason I do this with the BFS is because I’m already brooding the chicks anyhow and the maggots act like a cleanup crew for the brooder in addition to being food for the chicks. When the maggot density is high they’ll rise to the top of the litter at night and eat down and turn over the chick manure, keeping the bedding fresh.

If I was only dealing with free range, hen raised, chicks, I wouldn’t see a point, except perhaps for raising them as fish bait for my farm ponds. The conditions by which the BSF maggots thrive come directly about by having large amounts of protected poultry manure languishing around from brooding young chickens in confined spaces.

Its a great use of what would otherwise be wasted.

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

Finally got a video together.