Native Black soldier flies creating at least 3 opportunities in my yard.

Silkiemamuska

I am one of those people who's mind has a million plus ideas on the mental need to do list. 😆

For the last year or so it had really bothered me that our family was not recycling our dogs sold wastes. I resisted the idea of purchasing those poop digesters. I waited, revisted the idea, brainstormed and waited some more.

Then one day this summer, I noticed something that made me so excited that I shared it with the whole family. We have Black Soldier fly larva near the chicken coop!!! Not everyone was excited as I, but they listened anyways!

When my oldest moved off to college and the morning chicken duties became mine once again, the conditions were created that were perfect for native Black Soldier flies to reproduce. Every morning when I let our chickens out, I would scoop the fresh droppings and add them to a pile of used straw a few feet away. The Black Soldier flies loved the partially shaded location, the hollow tubes of the straw to lay eggs in, the consistent moisture levels, and daily fresh manure feedings for the larva.

Now that I have had this natural Black Soldier fly composting system working all summer, I have been able to feed it all of our dog wastes, all the morning coop scoopings, and harvest some larva for high protein treats for my chickbutts. A fourth benefit is that we have no flies around the chicken run. I had researched Black Soldier flies and read that the scent they produce deters our normal pesky flies and it appears to be true!

My plan for next year is to construct a self harvesting system in the same spot to supplement our chickens feed even more. This year I decided to increase the natural population for a more productive year in 2021.

On my mental list, look up what temperature I can resume feeding the pile in the spring, research designs for self harvesting composters, review what supplies I already have, make more than one?.............🤣🤣🤣

Torey

@Cathy Welcome to TGN's forum.

Great post! I would have never thought about "farming" fly larva. What a fabulous idea. Especially in keeping away other flies.

Just a suggestion. If you were to choose an avatar to go with your name or a bit of an add-on to your name, that would be helpful in identifying you from the other "Cathy"s on the forum.

LaurieLovesLearning

You are fortunate to live somewhere where these grow naturally!

You could sell these live (starter kits) or dried. I am not sure what regulations you might have to abide by, but it could make you a bit of extra cash.

We just spent a bunch for a bulk order of dried soldier fly larva to feed to our tiny chickens. It isn't cheap, so our many normal to large sized chickens will do without. There was no way that we would pay pet store prices, so went online to find a large quantity of Canadian grown (we wanted local-ish, and that is not China!).

I don't know what it takes to dry them or if you need to watch for spread of disease or anything, but it might be worth checking into.

We would have to have a heated place to set up a "farm" and then we'd have to try to find live flies, which could be difficult here.

As far as adding an avatar picture, we have good instructions in the Posting FAQs:

https://community.thegrownetwork.com/categories/posting-faqs

Welcome here!

Silkiemamuska

I did look up how Black Soldier flies are commercially farmed year round. Such things like the temperature and feeding of the mating adults, besides containment. There are many variables that could be challlenging! When I get a greenhouse set up in the future, I will consider trying to keep the life cycle going through the winter.

In the very least, I could imagine extending the growing period of the larva and decomosition of our pet wastes. There are never failures, just "feedback"!

Thank you for the information regarding avatar and differentiation. I have communicated regarding tech issues and hopefully in the next week I will be more "Me"!😃