Are Black Soldier Fly Larvae a bust??

Has anybody here made the Black Soldier Fly Larvae production into a viable part of their farm systems?

I know there was a bunch of excitement about them about a decade ago, but it seems like the enthusiasm has withered.  

I was over talking with my neighbor today about his setup, which looks great, but somehow isn't producing the really worthwhile yields that some growers in Africa have accomplished, apparently.  He's feeding them free spent brewers grain.

So I'm reaching out.  What's the verdict?  BSFL a bust?  Or do we just need to get that last piece dialed a little more....

Thanks y'all

Oh I can’t wait to see where this one goes, I’m planning to try my hand at BSF larvae production this year to cut back chicken feed costs plus I believe they’re a decent source for calcium… I’d love to see your neighbors set-up… ✌️

I remember the excitement 10-20 years ago, I was part of it.  I wanted those waspy-looking things, big time.

I failed, they never thrived.  All dead or disappeared within a week or two.  I tried to raise them in Tennessee, and here in Virginia.   Nothing.

I bought larvae from Ebay sellers.  They sure looked healthy when they arrived.

They are highly climate dependent, I think.

I've seen details of climate controlled, indoor breeding systems. But they are technologically complicated and not feasible for the lay person.  In a climate where they are free flying and breed for a considerable portion  of the year they are as wonderful as they sound. But if you don't meet that requirement then they basically won't work for you.

I've never been sure about feeding food scraps to them, to then feed the larvae to the chickens. Chickens eat pretty much anything. If you have scraps, just feed them directly. I can see some value in "upgrading" a waste that might rapidly spoil into larvae that would last a much longer time, and be more nutrient dense. And if your only goal is to dispose rapidly of putrefying waste then they are a good bet.

Some of the most promising projects I have seen are based in the tropics, and integrated into other waste management processes. If you are already collecting waste to recycle, then getting your customers to separate out food waste makes your recycling easier, and gives you a secondary product to sell. Some developing nations still have people picking over dump sites looking for recyclable scraps. Diverting their effort into collecting from source, and giving them valuable products is an obvious improvement to quality of life and overall outcome.

There was a charity I looked at a few years ago that was helping individuals get started in a small recycling business by investing in hand carts, BSF bio-reactors, and teaching them how to collect directly from homes rather than scavenge from heaps. The goals were to improve prospects for the individuals, while improving the quality of their environment. I'd love to see how it worked out.

I have black soldier flies occuring naturally from May to November. They are very useful and efficient for converting food scraps into chicken feed in the warm season.

There are several advantages of letting the food scraps going through BSFL: food scraps that chickens don't like will attract predators and houseflies if left unattended; BSFLs are efficient in consuming greasy and liquid waste; extra BSFLs can be frozen and stored for later use. Of course, for leafy greens it is better to give them to chickens directly.

So far I haven't been able to get the system going indoor for winter time. I am interested in getting BSF from a different source. My colony is so adapted to the local climate that the fall generation will remain in pupa stage for months regardless of the ambient temperature.

Is it the larve that is the chicken food?

John C Daley wrote:Is it the larve that is the chicken food?

Yes. The adults live a very short time - they don't eat, but just mate and die.

Does anyone know the nutritional difference between Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSF) and Red Wiggler (compost) worms? It seems to me that for those of us whose climate isn't a happy place for BSF, would we be much worse off trying to grow worms as feed as opposed to just worms for composting?

Is this an impractical idea? Where I am, rats are attracted to worms from what I can tell. My chickens and particularly my Muscovy, love eating worms. I have a friend who *really* wants to grow BSF, but it sounds like it may be more work than it's worth, and while I was getting serious "help" digging up Himalayan Blackberry roots today, it got me wondering. The "helpers" were the Muscovy in this situation!

Jay Angler wrote:Does anyone know the nutritional difference between Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSF) and Red Wiggler (compost) worms?

I recently read somewhere that red wigglers carry parasites that can be harmful to chickens and BSF larvae don't. (Not exactly "nutrition" but worth fact-checking.)

According to this article, it looks like larvae and beetles are the best for nutrition over worms:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/nutrition-info-mealworms-earthworms-red-wrigglers-compost-worms-etc.837491/

BSF shed their entire digestive tract at maturity I think, so are "clean" when they crawl out of the breeder. Worms don't so their digestive tract may have nasty stuff in it.

But I think these risks are rather hypothetical.

Well this thread kinda confirms the general lack of amazingness with BSFL, or so it seems.

I made some contact with the Ag Dept. at Warren Wilson College, and am going to get a tour of their facility.  The faculty rep said there's nothing happening now in the cold of winter, but that they have a seasonal setup.

Onward...

What do you think of growing composting worms to feed the chickens?

Adam Klaus wrote:Well this thread kinda confirms the general lack of amazingness with BSFL, or so it seems.

The places I heard of it doing well, was in conjunction with cafeterias which had a lot of post consumer mixed food waste. This gave the larvae a more well-rounded diet than just a single food source, and decreased the "tipping fees" of carting wet food waste to land-fills. In BC, (Canada) we now have Provincial rules about composting food wastes, and that decreases both the environmental pressure to upcycle the waste into BSF Larvae and the economic pressure because the composting programs are probably competitive or cheaper to operate. The one place I heard was doing BSF in the Province, was doing it on more of an industrial, rather than a farm scale.

If we keep having poor wheat crops in Canada, that may shift again, as wheat is a major ingredient in chicken feed.

Michael Cox wrote:I've seen details of climate controlled, indoor breeding systems. But they are technologically complicated and not feasible for the lay person.  In a climate where they are free flying and breed for a considerable portion  of the year they are as wonderful as they sound. But if you don't meet that requirement then they basically won't work for you.

Looks like these controlled systems are starting to be fairly widely used to dispose of food waste on a municipal scale in various countries.



It sounds like the Australian system took some development to get right.

edit: ignore the click bait thumbnail - that has nothing to do with the video, which I thought was reasonable good and covers more than just the Australian scheme.

I built a bin, filled it with scraps that would be inappropriate for my worm bin, and the black soldier fly's came on their own. The only difficult part was that amount of food they go through, it's a lot.
I don't use my BSF bin. I just couldn't do it. adding scraps to the bin with all the maggots, it just totally grossed me out.  I thought I could handle it because they self harvest, and they do.  I didn't consider having to feed them, and see them pretty much every day.
I think it's a great concept, I love reducing my waist and producing a healthy chicken snack. more power to the people who can do it.

I am sold on BSF, and will bin them and use them deliberately when I get chickens again.  As it is they show up in my compost pile every summer.  They will eat the vilest imaginable stuff, stuff that the chickens won't touch directly (which is saying a lot!) Chicken manure, fresh humanure, cat manure, poisonous mushrooms from the forest, ripe roadkill, old moldy stuff of any sort....all in the bin, all converted into feed!  Coffee grounds are such a favorite I would ask about them at coffee shops in town, and carefully spread them out to dry for long term use.
  The biggest problem is getting enough feedstock to make their yields a significant part of the diet of even five layers.  An average bin will supply most of their protein through the late summer and early fall, perhaps with some surplus dormant grubs to feed off for a while more.  I would really need to up my feed-scrounging game with more dumpster diving, maybe drying my humanure in the sun somehow? so as to bulk them up and grow a lot in the comparatively short season and then store the grubs through the rest of the year.  I think they would stay dormant through the cold in the cellar where we keep our potatoes.
   And pro tip, you don't need one of those expensive "bipod" bins.  Any bucket, barrel or tub will do, provided it's tipped at just the right angle so the mature grubs will crawl up the lowest incline and drop off the edge into a container.  I've used 55 gallon barrels and five gallon buckets.  You can get a lot bigger colony in a barrel, too.