Grubblies

[Wildcow7]

So on Facebook there is a company who sells solider fly larva dried!! They are an amazing company grown in the US!! The ladies love them! No I am not sponsored by them I just love their products and what they stand for!

 

[Wildcow7]

 

[Cindy in PA]

Scratch & Peck sells soldier fly larva grown in the USA also. My girls love them. Would never feed the Chinese mealworms. If they put melamine in baby formula for protein, what would they feed mealworms? Yuck!

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

My chickens like to eat SF larvae out of their poop pile. And boy do they look like crap when they come away from there after it's rained looking like they're wearing knee-high boots.

For cleaner fun fill a 5-gal bucket with chicken poop, leave it uncovered until flies lay their eggs, then cover it. Eventually, soldier fly larvae will congregate towards the top where you can scoop them out and feed to the chickens. They go nuts.

 

[Wildcow7]

My chickens like to eat SF larvae out of their poop pile. And boy do they look like crap when they come away from there after it's rained looking like they're wearing knee-high boots.

For cleaner fun fill a 5-gal bucket with chicken poop, leave it uncovered until flies lay their eggs, then cover it. Eventually, soldier fly larvae will congregate towards the top where you can scoop them out and feed to the chickens. They go nuts.

Huh that's a cool idea I will have to try it for sure!!

 

[Wildcow7]

Scratch & Peck sells soldier fly larva grown in the USA also. My girls love them. Would never feed the Chinese mealworms. If they put melamine in baby formula for protein, what would they feed mealworms? Yuck!

Right that's what I was thinking so gross!

 

[Nambroth]

Sorry, I know this is an older thread, but I wanted to mention that I too love grubblies (and any other company that raises black soldier fly larvae on human food waste). I've been buying and using them since they were a very tiny company and still sold the grubs in brown paper bags. I am not sponsored and I'm pretty sure the company doesn't know I exist, but I wanted to mention; for just a few birds / small flocks, especially of pet chickens, these are a great and healthy treat. It might get too expensive for people with lots of chickens. This is a fantastic way to offer a quality protein in a more environmentally friendly way for those that seek to do so. This may be anecdotal, but my birds seem to have much better feathering and molts on this protein (vs animal proteins or mass-produced mealworms). They do have a lot more calcium than mealworms, too. Even if they didn't, the methods behind raising black soldier fly larve jive more strongly with my personal ethics. You may feel otherwise (that's okay!).

I've read some people say that their birds prefer these less than mealworms, but I suspect that's because chickens are often exposed to mealworms as a treat first, when they were young, and it becomes a favorite simply due to exposure to that item; the chicks I raised with dried black soldier fly larvae as treats prefer them vastly over dried mealworms. My other, older hens that I raised with mealworm treats prefer both dried larvae and dried mealworms about equally. It took them a while to "get into" the grubblies, but now they will come running across the yard if they hear the bag being picked up!

This may sound gross, but the grubblies smell good, too. My husband asked what sort of (people) snack I had there that I was "sharing with the chickens" because it smelled good to him (haha!).

 

[elmo]

My chickens like to eat SF larvae out of their poop pile. And boy do they look like crap when they come away from there after it's rained looking like they're wearing knee-high boots.

For cleaner fun fill a 5-gal bucket with chicken poop, leave it uncovered until flies lay their eggs, then cover it. Eventually, soldier fly larvae will congregate towards the top where you can scoop them out and feed to the chickens. They go nuts.

It's been a while since I researched this, but I recall that there is a concern that if you feed grubs raised on chicken manure back to chickens you may be intensifying the potential for internal parasites in your chickens.

Every year a naturally occurring colony of black soldier flies start up in our manure composter (a large covered trash bin with small holes drilled into the sides and bottom), and it's great for breaking down the manure. But I don't feed the grubs to our chickens.

 

[Dhkoenig]

I know this is an older thread but I have been buying the Layer Feed from Grubblies. My girls turn their beaks up at any pellet feed. This stuff they love, and they advertise it as 100 percent nutritionally perfect for laying hens. Does anyone else use their layer feed?