Thousands of Grubs in Compost ( picture and video )

[Ace_king_brahma]

Timberline started selling them a few months back as calci-worms. They claim to raise them 100% on a grain based feed. I have been collecting them and wqashing them off a bit and then feeding them to my birds. They love them too! There are only a few of my girls that are just too squeamish to touch black soldier maggots.

 

[geedub]

Nifty-Chicken, that has to be the cutest BSF researcher ever!

Here's a poster showing the life cycle of black soldier flies. LINK

 

[bluie]

Forget the chickens, I'd watch again for Alana!
she is adorable!

 

[geedub]

Alana's video is the latest post on my blog.

 

[smith2]

What a star! She is so cute!

 

[geedub]

For every 5 lbs of food scraps that you throw away you could have produced 1 lb of highly nutritious live feed. Unlike regular composting you can process any type of organic matter including meats, dairy, citrus, etc., except high cellulose items like grasses.

In a 2 ft diameter container you can process 10 lbs of waste per day.

The residue from composting with BSF larvae is a super-medium for raising earthworms.

The only reason I can think of to not embrace this technology is cultural bias. Sorry, had to say it.

 

[adeledamate]

I too have BSF larva in my composters and noticed that my chickens are always hanging out underneath my two composters. I thought it was for the shade but have now figured out that they are waiting for some of the larva to crawl out of the air holes and fall to the ground. Too cool. They use to gross me out but I am now finding myself digging around for them, with a trowel of course, to give to the hens.

Alana is so cute and how great that she's growing up not being grossed out by larva.

 

[SandraMort]

How do you get BSF in the stuff without the other flies laying eggs in it? I'm failing to grasp that part.

 

[geedub]

BSF larvae give off an info-chemical that repels other fly species. It's well documented that the presence of BSF can nearly or completely eliminate house flies in waste.

Last year I added a freshly dead fish to my BSF unit in 90 degree weather. I observed the container every hour until the fish was consumed which took 24 hours. During that whole time I saw only 2 house flies near the unit, and none inside of it. Honestly, you could expect to see two house flies anywhere and at anytime.

 

[adeledamate]

From what I've read, house flys can't lay their larva, or they don't survive, where BSF have layed their eggs. So I see them as being beneficial and keeping disease carrying fly larva out of my compost.