Soldier grub bin under poultry coop. How sanitary are soldier grubs?

[geedub]

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If any of those animals can find and get to the larvae they will eat them. Surprisingly I haven't heard of a specific incident. I've kept BSF units in woods with a known raccoon population but for some reason they left it alone.

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I only recommend adding animal products to a dense collection of BSF larvae, and then only what they can eat in a day. It's definitely not a good idea to use it as bait for the reason you mention.

The corn I use as an attractant is dried whole kernels soaked in water until fermented. I like this because the sour smell is strong enough to be a beacon for BSF females, yet to me the smell is not too offensive compared to other fermenting/rotting foods.

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Once a dense colony of larvae is established you won't have any noticeable bad odors as long as you manage the unit properly. My neighbors could stand right next to my unit and they wouldn't know what was happening inside of it, and that includes when I process a lot of fresh fish in hot weather. Manure might be an exception as the inherent odors of the waste you process are released as the BSF consume it. Still, the odor should only last until the BSF have consumed the material which should happen quickly if you aren't overloading your colony.

While you're trying to attract female BSF you want some smell, maybe enough to be noticeable from a few feet away. This is what the fermented corn is good for.

1000 larvae is a very small number to work with. Again, I would also use the corn or something else with a distinct sour smell to help attract them.

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It all depends on your goals and expectations; you can culture BSF in any container or no container at all. The best thing to do is build it and test it. I don't want to overly influence your ideas because your vision may be based on something I haven't considered. I've specialized in containers that are all similar to my DIY bucket in terms of my goals. A unit designed to work with a chicken coop would be different and I don't have experience with that.

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You're welcome.

 

[Lumenos]

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It all depends on your goals and expectations; you can culture BSF in any container or no container at all. The best thing to do is build it and test it. I don't want to overly influence your ideas because your vision may be based on something I haven't considered. I've specialized in containers that are all similar to my DIY bucket in terms of my goals. A unit designed to work with a chicken coop would be different and I don't have experience with that.

I integrate the knowledge of others with my own. I know your not a manure expert, but maybe you or someone else could tell me if these sound like good hypotheses for my coop experiment:

*I'm not likely to have a major problem with mice getting into the coop grub bin to eat the grubs or their uneaten food because it will likely be too wet, processed too quickly by the grubs, or (for whatever reason) other chicken farmers haven't mentioned this as a problem. (If anyone has had issues with rodents eating soldier grubs, please tell me. I should start building soon.)
*The soldier flies are *unlikely* to go through my 1/4" hardware cloth. (The openings are exactly 3/8".)
*The soldier flies *will* go through 16 gauge, 1/2" hardware cloth. (Geedub used 1/2" holes in his grub bin but the openings in 16 gauge hardware cloth are about 0.437 inches (source) .)

So now I'm changing the design to use the 1/4" hardware cloth to wrap around one narrow side of the coop. I might get one roll of and do the entire top and bottom of the bin with 1/2" hardware cloth, which should be less prone to decay than wood. The soldier flies are likely to be attracted to the side of the coop with the window so under that I put a strip of 1/2" hardware cloth, so they can get into the bin (but not the coop) from there.nnOn the other hand, might the 1/4" hardware cloth, work better on the bottom of the bin to prevent the mature soldier grubs from digging down and out of the bin? That probably won't matter, however. I'm not about to buy more 1/4" hardware cloth (too expensive), and I mainly wanting my 1/4" hardware cloth on the coop, so the poultry feel safer in there (as compared with 1/2" hardware cloth) and predators (coons) are less likely to scare them (all) out of the coop, so that the predator-proof coop entrance that I am researching [url=https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=332411&p=1]here will be more likely to work.

It looks like the entrance will have to be too high for (fast-growing) meat birds (such as large muscovies) but maybe for a variety of nimble leghorns it could provide an avenue of escape from a predator who gets past the run fence during the day. Maybe it could even work with the door open all the time. Only if someone could convince me that even rats and mice could jump higher than a leghorn could be trained to jump/fly (on a daily basis), would I concede that a climb-prevention coop entrance is not a worthwhile experiment. (To raise the height of the coop entrance, I would disconnect it from the coop grub bin, add wall all the way around, and connect the grub bin to the bottom of the taller structure. It may become too heavy to be portable at that point, however.)

The 1/4" hardware cloth would be easier on the poultry's feet but I wanted to keep the possibility of putting rabbits in it, and the 16 gauge, 1/2" hardware cloth is recommended for rabbit floor (although the wire can be covered everywhere but under the rabbits' middens, to make it more comfortable for their feet). Also less fecal build up on the wire. The coop is mainly to be for roosting at night time or eating the stored food I want to try to keep away from rodents. The run will have water and food and this is where they can put their feet on the ground.
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If any of those animals can find and get to the larvae they will eat them. Surprisingly I haven't heard of a specific incident. I've kept BSF units in woods with a known raccoon population but for some reason they left it alone.

Dang I forgot to ask about mice! That is very interesting. Perhaps it is due to the reduction of odors; maybe this is like a stealth defense mechanism for the grubs. Not sure if that will work with direct contact with the ground and other potential mouse food around, but it looks like the best hypothesis for my experiments. Hardware cloth is quite expensive anyway. If I get mice going in there then I could put the coop inside the run. Some say chickens are better mousers than cats.

I have two round bins that are about the size of BioPods that I plan to use as grub bins for excess manure, kitchen wastes, worm combo bins, etc. If I'm not going to have to coon-proof them, this part would be very much easier. I expect to have coons crawling all over everything, eventually, but I'll probably try these bins outdoors, without the coon-proofing if I get a large enough colony going.
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That's the plan! I wouldn't add any manure just to attract them initially. I know manure attracts flesh flies unless it is well buried in sorbents or dirt. I do plan to use humanure and paper/leaves in a redworm bin, so if the soldier flies lay eggs in that, that would be great. I might have a little difficulty separating the redworms from the grubs before it gets too hot for the worms, without making a little stink. Maybe do that after everybody's gone to bed.

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Once a dense colony of larvae is established you won't have any noticeable bad odors as long as you manage the unit properly. My neighbors could stand right next to my unit and they wouldn't know what was happening inside of it, and that includes when I process a lot of fresh fish in hot weather. Manure might be an exception as the inherent odors of the waste you process are released as the BSF consume it. Still, the odor should only last until the BSF have consumed the material which should happen quickly if you aren't overloading your colony.

While you're trying to attract female BSF you want some smell, maybe enough to be noticeable from a few feet away. This is what the fermented corn is good for.

Do you mean to attract the soldier flies, it should smell sour from a few feet away, even if you have a large colony and you are releasing most of the soldier flies near it? I thought the "smell" produced by the colony smelled something like wet straw to us, but that it was the most powerful attractant to the soldier flies.

I wouldn't expect it to smell very good if/when uncovered fresh manure was added, but perhaps a large colony can still attract the soldier flies if a quarter inch of crushed leaves are put over the manure when it is added? How large would the colony have to be to attract eggs with quarter inch of leaves over it all the time (if the leaves won't get mixed in)?

I could get the grub "tea" from the clean bins and pour it over the cover material on the manure bins, so I get eggs in it. But if that doesn't work I could simply move the larva from the clean bin to the manure bins.

Perhaps the cover material will get mixed into the manure, induce thermophilic composting, and the bin/pile will get too hot for the soldier grubs?

I want to lower any manure stink as much as possible. I certainly don't want anything the neighbors can smell because if they complain, my little research farm could get severely crippled by The MAN!

(Of course, I don't want to make them uncomfortable anyway.) The houses here are only about 100 feet away and my backyard is quite narrow. I also want to prevent the smell from reaching pests or predators. I was planing two types of grub bins; one for grubs the poultry can eat, and one for grubs raised in their manure. Now I'm thinking I will instead use three bins: The two manure bins with sorbent covering them, and one "clean" bin with strictly plant matter (like the fermented corn you recommend) to attract the soldier grubs and perhaps ensure survival if the other bins have issues (like heat) or have to be decommissioned.

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[geedub]

1/4 inch hardware cloth won't stop even the largest BSF larvae from passing through. The adult females don't necessarily need to enter your bin so you can cover it with 1/4 inch mesh and still get reproduction. The female BSF don't usually lay eggs directly on waste anyway and will probably lay eggs on the mesh itself. When the larvae hatch they will drop or crawl into the waste.

When I refer to attracting BSF females with a noticeable sour smell I mean the initial process of establishing a colony of larvae. Once it's established the females will find the unit automatically and you can transition to nearly odor-free composting. Neighbors 100 feet away will not be a problem if you manage everything properly.

Lumenos, have you ever successfully cultured BSF? I appreciate your enthusiasm, but trying to design a specialized device for BSF without having a thorough knowledge of their behavior is not practical.

 

[Lumenos]

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(Oh here we go again.) Yes, I believe I mentioned the two grubs that I raised myself.

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Okay, changed the plan again. I'm doing away with the silly doors and the bottom layer of wire. That's much better. I will not build any collection devices now, but first see if they will crawl along the walls instead of under or up the wood. That is, IF I can get a colony established, etc.

This design is not really much more difficult than building a coop. I'm just building a coop in such a way that it might be able to be fitted with ramps to collect grubs, etc. The 9" high walls of the "grub bin" are needed as support for the coop when it is moved as it is (now) planned to be portable. This space is needed for the manure anyway, if it is on the ground, but I could probably put it on bricks to increase the space for manure and make it easier to rake out and add sorbents. I could increase the size/height of the grub bin by putting a four-sided box under it. If I want to add wire to the bottom later, it will be attached to a frame and this frame may only be attached to the coop grub bin with six "elbow brackets", so I can unscrew them without lifting it.

I'll throw out some more questions if you are willing and able to address these:

The first location I plan to put this coop is kinda like a buried compost heap but it has a lot of untreated wood (mostly juniper and creeping fig) packed tightly together. There are dry leaves, twigs and sticks over the wood. I'll call it a "sobent bog". The top is maybe six inches above ground level and it is mostly covered with dirt but it is very "squishy" (dry squishy) and hollow. I plan to put more dirt/mud over it and jump around on it to get it a little more solid and packed down. BioPods tend to be much deeper than 9 inches although I have read "Larvae can operate 6 to 8 inches below the surface. At lower depths they accomplish very little bioconversion." (Source: Black Soldier Fly: Compiled Research On Best Cultivation Practices - Published 9 July 2008 Research Resources)

Do you think I might end up feeding a rat's nest down at the bottom of this "sorbent bog" even if I put wire on the bottom of the bin? Will all the grubs go down inside the "sorbent bog" (and become rat food) or stay up above the bottom wire, where the manure is fresher?
When the the mature grubs are ready to pupate are they likely to go *up* first, run into the walls, and use the ramps on the walls of the grub bin? Or will they tend to dig *down* through the dirt and into the "sorbent bog"?

Would either of these situations prehaps be improved if I had the coop on solid dirt? (We have a heavy clayish soil here, but it is getting looser due to my mulching, etc.) Or is the bin probably not tall enough, in other words?

I'm not sure whether lifting the coop and "bin", off the ground, would be desirable to increase ventilation, or whether the heat from the composting manure should be used to keep the coop warmer, since it has an entire side for ventilation (if uncovered). Perhaps in summer it would be desirable to elevate the coop for cooling. I could always scoop up the gruby manure and put it in a bin. There are molds to make a cement biopod that is open on the ground and the top. The ground space is not completely used up by the bin because you could put things on top of it, like a planter, since the grubs shouldn't need full ventilation or full sun (to keep them from migrating out).

The bottom wire would (have) serve(d) a few other purposes (which don't require that I add it yet):

First, it seems that if skunks or raccoons dig under the coop (to get to the chickens) they may discover these grubs and decide they like eating those on a regular basis. But in my latest design, to protect the harvested grubs I have some metal buckets to make one or two coon-proof collection bin(s) outside of the coop grub bin. These would be firmly attached to the coop grub bin so that if it is elevated, the collection buckets are still in place. This way the grub bandits won't be able to grab handfuls of the harvested grubs and will have to pick them out of the doodie, if they want them.

The grub collection buckets and ramps I won't make now, I will first see if I can get a self-replicating colony started, whether the grubs do crawl along the walls, etc.

Secondly, I want to prevent predators from being able to scare the poultry out of the coop, if the door is open. But without the wire on the bottom of the bin, I can see whether predators dig under this and may get a chance to observe this happening and see how the birds react. There is a remote possibility that I could hook up a webcam (to one of the salvaged computers I have) and catch video of this. (See we have so many cheap empty ink cartridges, I could use a Staples to bioconvert those into a webcam that might even have motion detection.

) I may be able to point the camera through the 1/4" hardware cloth that will be on the side furthest from the nesting boxes. If I use my extra 1/2" hardware cloth to make the coop door, I would be able to see if the chickens panic and try to get out of this door, as Bossroo claims they all will do. And that is the Truthism. Tune in tomorrow for the next exciting episode of What Might Be Possible.

 

[geedub]

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I'll be glad to help you get a colony established but I won't get involved in any specialized design until you learn the basics.

 

[Lumenos]

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I'll be glad to help you get a colony established but I won't get involved in any specialized design until you learn the basics.

Too late! It is all designed now!

It may need a few adjustments... Thanks again for all your help.

 

[geedub]

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That's great Lumenos, I'm always happy to see someone experimenting with BSF. Good luck.

 

[beergnome]

I always have black soldier flies in my backyard. Not lots, but I see them all the time. They like to buzz around my face and I used to freak out a bit because they do look waspish, but I figured out that if I smack em with my hat they will go away. They seem to like me.

Today, I was poking around in the compost bin and noticed what I thought looked like the grubs. There were four or five adults buzzing around the bin, and I watched one lay a bunch of eggs. She just poked her butt into the compost pile again and again, but you couldn't see anything come out, as the eggs are apparently really small.

The moist, hot layer of the compost was crawling with them. It was well over 100F where they were, and it was a moist layer of active compost. I had not seen these guys in there previously, but I recently turned the compost and gave it a good watering. I could scoop up a big handful and get maybe 20 larvae. This was the case for about a foot of depth in the top layer of a three foot diameter compost bin. The compost is mostly just leaves, hay, grass, veggie scraps and chicken litter.

I have some buckets around, so I just transferred a bunch of larvae and compost stuff into it (and no doubt eggs). I will out fit a lid and larvae ramp and a drain hole soon and start feeding these guys. Apparently, all you need is an entrance hole (protected from rain) and the adult females are attracted by the smell of the larvae and lay the eggs in there. The larvae never grow up because you collect them and feed them to the chickens. Apparently, a good colony will eat anything, and quickly.

I'll post an update as I get my colony established.

Jeff

 

[geedub]

Great post beergnome! Of course I don't like to hear about anyone smacking a harmless and beneficial animal, but I understand people's bias. Most people think of all flies as being equal which is untrue.

BSF larvae are happy at 100º but they die if the temperature reaches 113º.

BSF don't eat leaves, hay or paper; they are in your compost for the food scraps and chicken litter. In fact it's probably the chicken litter that led to you having such a healthy BSF population around your place. Good luck with your BSF unit.

 

[beergnome]

Thanks, geedub! I really have enjoyed your blog. I'm very interested and excited about the bsfl. Oh, and I don't smack em too hard, just knock em away when they get in my face.