Thousands of Grubs in Compost ( picture and video )

[geedub]

That's good news injunjoe. It's true that BSF rarely will land on someone. I've had maybe two of them land on me and that was when I had been handling larvae so I had their scent on my hands. To be honest I liked it when they landed on me, I actually felt honored much the way you would if a butterfly landed on you. Normally when I go to check my colony I don't even see an adult BSF and when I do I always greet them with respect and affection. Of course they're all females looking to lay and I usually refer to them as "the girls". There's no logical reason to be repulsed by a harmless insect that is providing such a valuable service.

I think there's some type of sticky substance that's sold to block ants but I don't know for sure.

If you have BSF on your property it's just a matter of time before they find and lay eggs by your offerings. It's like boiling water, it only seems to take a long time if you're in a hurry.

 

[geedub]

I may have had an insight as to why BSFL would choose to leave a compost bin with an adequate food supply.

I'm doing a test that involves raising a batch of larvae in a common unmodified bucket with a lid. Under some conditions the larvae remain on the bottom with the food, and other times many or most of them climb the sides and would have left except for the lid. Usually when I find the larvae trying to exit I add food and if I check on them soon they are all back down feeding. An important fact is that there has never been a total absence of food in this bucket. Even with some uneaten food available a significant percentage of the larvae try to exit at times.

Theory 1) The larvae are programmed by nature to migrate away from the food source if the volume of food will not support the future needs of the colony as the individuals grow. In nature it's rare for scavengers to find a replenishing food source, so what we provide in our bins is an exception. There may be a signal that triggers a portion of the colony to leave in the presence of uneaten food so that the remaining individuals have enough to complete their development.

Today I checked the bucket and many larvae were trying to exit, but there was an abundance of food. The food I've been giving them lately is pelleted food for pond fish. It's probably comparable to other dry pet foods. I always add a little water to the dry food, but on a hunch I added a good amount of water to the bucket. I checked back in 5 minutes and all the larvae were on the bottom feeding.

Theory 2) BSFL need a significant supply of liquid to process food. BSFL have robust digestive systems, consume food rapidly and generate significant heat due to metabolism. They're most successful in climates with high humidity. These factors suggest that BSFL may require a significant supply of moisture to support a large colony. When a site lacks the ideal amount of moisture a percentage of the colony may migrate away from the food source allowing the remaining individuals enough moisture to continue development.

I don't know much about traditional composting, but I'm guessing that keeping it on the wet side would allow you to maintain BSFL at higher concentrations. Of course you would also need to provide several pounds of food per day on average.

I'm just knocking ideas around, please continue with your chicken stuff.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Those theories actually sound pretty solid to me! Keep us posted with your thoughts and experiments and I'll do the same.

Cheers!

 

[Gatekeeper]

I love the idea of new things to help give the "Kids" new treats. How cost effective is it? Composting is a great idea but to buy a sack of wheat germ and go through the process of caring for it, is it cost effective?

How many pounds of larva does a 50# sack produce? If it produces less than 50 pounds it it worth the time and cost of the bran? I am just curious

Thank you Vincent Price - Jeff Goldblum!

Gate

 

[geedub]

Gate, you certainly don't need to feed the larvae anything except garbage. BSF will eat almost any organic waste you give them except paper and grass. This is especially true if you culture BSF larvae in a properly designed container. As I've mention before, a compost bin is not a good tool for culturing BSF. I certainly wouldn't spend money feeding larvae that can and will exit the bin on a regular basis as in the case of a traditional compost bin.

I'm running some controlled experiments with BSF where I feed them primarily cornmeal which costs $0.18 per pound at my local feed store. I soak it in water for 24 hours to soften it, and a small amount goes a long way. Most people should be able to access plenty of organic garbage to keep a large colony going. In a unit that successfully contains the BSFL you can skip several days of feeding without hurting the larvae or losing them to migration. If you have freezer space you can store BSF food when it's plentiful, like I'm currently doing with my neighbor's unwanted (overripe) pears.

 

[geedub]

Me again!

I'm working with someone who raises chickens on the best way to utilize BSF larvae. I'm going to copy and paste one of my posts here for you chicken people to consider:

I have a thought about getting the most out of your available food scraps. I'm not a biologist, so this is guesswork on my part.

I have doubts that by feeding the kitchen scraps exclusively to the chickens that you're getting the best use of that feed source. I'm basing this on the assumption that a chicken's digestive system is substantially less efficient than that of black soldier fly larvae.

If you gave (most of) the food scraps to the BSFL I think they would convert it to protein and fat more efficiently than the chickens can. If you then feed the larvae to the chickens most of the nutrients will have been concentrated into the larvae, supplying the chickens with a superior source of fat and protein.

In short, I'm suggesting that it would be more effective to feed the table scraps to the animal that is best at processing them, the BSF grubs. My laymen way of thinking is that the BSF will efficiently concentrate the nutrients for the chickens. I'm not suggesting you deny the chickens of premium table scraps, but that the bulk of the scraps might be better processed by the black soldier fly larvae.

I'm curious about the best ratio of live larvae to grains and vegetables in a chicken's diet. Will a higher intake of fresh insect fat and protein result in better chicken health and growth? I'm also curious about the volume and consistency of chicken manure from birds fed the maximum recommended quantity of larvae vs birds fed little or no larvae and a high quantity of vegetable matter. Will birds fed more larvae create less, or drier manure? Table scraps typically have a high moisture content so feeding them to chickens may create wetter manure.

As a side note I wonder if the high calcium content of the BSFL benefits the hens since the eggshells require calcium. If so, this might indicate a high ratio of larvae in the diet.

What do you think?​

 

[MaineChickens]

That is too funny!

I just got done taking pics of my compost pile brats and came in and read this. The pile was under a downed tree until earlier today and the girls say it was RIPE! Happy birds and ducks!

http://picasaweb.google.com/dt6303/Burnday

 

[Circle3]

Very great to see this blog talking about BSF (Black Soldier Fly) larvae as an easy food source for poultry. I am listing this blog on our website www.circle3.com so our chicken enthusiasts can see what you are doing.

I have been giving BSF to our chickens for almost 2 years now and have noticed increased egg production on the day after a feed of BSF.

When we are in our peak production months for BSF larvae, we just freeze excess larvae for use when the BSF harvest is low. Chickens don't seem to mind the frozen ones.

Cheers for sunny Australia.

 

[GardeNerd]

Hey, it sure is good to know I now have a use for these. I have always had both these soldier fly larvae and the big Green Fruit or Fig beetle larva grubs in my compost pile. Yuck. They are all around L.B.C. and Los Angeles Co. when I talk to my gardening friends.

I just have been squishing and throwing them back in. Once in awhile we would take a bucket of them to the duck pond around the corner and the ducks would gobble them up. Now that we are getting chickens I will certainly look at these critters differently. Thanks for the info and bumping this up in the posts so us newbies would see it without looking for it.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

It's been a little over a year since my first grub post. Two weeks ago I dumped a TON of accumulated kitchen scraps (which were accumulating flies outside our back door) into the compost bin. When I did it a huge wasp like fly was buzzing around my head and landed next to me... an adult Black Soldier Fly!!

I went out today with the girls and turned the compost. It was FILLED with grubs... tons and tons. Ages were all over the place from tiny babies to super dark prepupa.

We hand harvested a bunch into a jar to feed to the chickens. Well, you know that story of the monkey trap (fists get stuck when reaching into a small hole) well, that's what happened with my girls trying to get the grubs out at the same time:

I need to either buy or build some kind of self harvester!!