Newb asking about black soldier fly larva BSFL

[Wednesday]

I use the Biopod and my chickens went crazy for them. Have read you can fed up to 25% of their diet in BSF larave. In Florida they are here almost year round. Great clean protein!

 

[Julbrod]

Apparently they can be sprinkled on your doggie's doo and they will eat that too and then wait under ground for the next one!



Check out this video of BSFL eating fish

 

[Romoshka]

Perhaps this thread has gone cold but since I just found it and have BSFL experience I thought I would chime in. I'm going into my third year rearing BSFL and this year I've added quail to our lil farm but have not yet fed any to my quail. I'm currently supplementing the quail with commercial dry mealworms. BSFL are very easy and there is tons of data on the internet on techniques. Having spent many $$$ on different breeders I'm convinced that the tavus boat is the superior design. I have one and am building a second for this year. The second generation Biopod is not bad but it's very expensive. Various bucket breeders are out there but the only one I've found even reasonable, in build time and productivity, is the tilted/slanted design.

My excess was frozen for feeding over the winter but that is a pain as the residual moisture causes them to all stick together and a 1 lb coffee can of frozen/lumped together larva are not easy to break apart and feed chickens. My research reveals that there are some out there that are dehydrating the excess and so I'm building a solar dehydrator for that purpose.

The leachate (the liquid residue they produce) is a very potent fertilizer. Initially I read that it should be diluted 100:1 before application but later read of a commercial facility in Oregon that obtains leachate (method not revealed) and dilutes 50:1 and sells it as ready to apply liquid fertilizer. Our experience indicates that it is a good fertilizer and there is little difference in either dilution ratios but we've never used it full strength.

There is a commercial facility in Ohio that grows BSFL dehydrates them, grinds and mixes with ?and presses out a pellet feed for fish, birds, and other livestock.

So, their easy to rear, nutritious, and chickens (and I hope quail too) love em. Go for it.

 

[Chicken-Farmer]

My quail snub their noses at them. I do use the BSFL to compost my quail manure though. In the summer my bin churns like water with the amount of larvae I have in there. I don't have a crawl off system. I just scoop the larvae off the top. They almost swarm at times because I have so many. I do have chickens now and my larvae are just starting to wake up again. I'm hoping the chickens like the larvae better than the quail.

Chicken-Farmer

 

[Romoshka]

Hey chicken farmer I guarantee your chickens will gobble em up. So you're saying that you've found BSFL in your quail manure? Wow! I would have thought it too hot. I do have em in my rabbit poo and it frustrates me that I can't harvest those. You said your BSFL were beginning to show up...it must be warmer where you are. I'm in western SC, where are you located?

 

[Chicken-Farmer]

Yep I'm in Mobile,AL. My flies started showing up last week and they have been laying like crazy ever since. In a few weeks I expect 10's of thousands of larvae to start eating my quail poo again. I did some dormant larvae left from last year in the poo bin, but nowhere near the amount that I had last summer. But it is encouraging to see the adults showing back up again. I love the larvae because they do such a great job of churning the bin contents which keeps down on the ammonia levels and also turns the poo into fertilizer.

Chicken-Farmer

 

[Romoshka]

Well ive finally got larva but not in my breeders. The coffee can full of wet fermenting scratch grain was alive with larva so I transformed 1/2 to each breeder bin. Hope to see eggs soon.

 

[Chicken-Farmer]

You should see adults very soon. The adults return to their place of birth to lay eggs. I have thousands of larvae right now with a few hundred adults flying around laying eggs throughout the day.

Chicken-Farmer

 

[cookiesdaddy]

I'm beginning my first attempt at BSFL to (1) help process quail and chicken poos, (2) provide supplement feed, and (3) hopefully reduce house flies. I have a few questions. Please help out if you have answers:

1. Read that people feed BSFL with quail poop. What about chicken poop - it's OK too right?

2. Read that people feed BSFL to chicken. What about quail - is it OK to feed quail with BSFL?

3. I add DE to chicken feed, dust bath and spread throughout the run, so the poop will contain DE. Will this kill the BSFL if I feed them with this poop?

4. There's no BSFL presence in my area (I looked!) So I'm afraid if the flies hatch outside the bin they may fly away and not return to the bin to lay eggs. At the same time I heard that it's difficult to design an "enclosed" system / bin so the flies would be trapped inside. Any suggestion?

 

[Romoshka]

Well this is my first year with quail and I can tell you they LOVE quail poo. In prior years I've run 6-8 breeder/grower bins of various sizes with copious crawl offs but this year my bins are very poorly populated but the ground under my quail cages are 2-3" thick with BSFL. So yes, as chicken farmer in mobile can attest they love quail poo.

There are commercial laying houses that use the naturally occurring BSFL to keep the chicken poo levels under control. So yes chicken and quail poo are good BSFL feed. Some have expressed concerns about feeding BSFL that have been raised on chicken poo back to chickens using the preon concerns from the bovine encephalopathy (mad cow) issues in England several years ago. No definitive data is available on this topic that I've been able to find thus far. Since my layers eventually wind up in freezer camp I elect to not feed my BSFL chicken poo.

I haven't tried to feed BSFL to quail yet but chicken farmer in mobile says his quail won't touch em. My quail do like mealworms though so will offer some BSFL soon to see if perhaps SC BSFL have a different palate then AL BSFL. If they won't eat em I'll think that perhaps it relates to size.

The DE question is interesting. I don't use DE so can't respond to that question but will watch with interest any that have experience and their responses.

There are several sites where indoor/enclosed breeding are discussed.
Here are a few to get you started.

http://www.blacksoldierflyfarming.c...849-hi-from-holland-indoor-breeding?start=126

http://members.shaw.ca/borealwormer/BSF_Lighting.html