Black soldier fly larvae: poultry, fish food

Fascinating stuff for feeding fish or chickens.

I think we were talking about something like this not too long ago.

Link

I like this idea in that it would be a good source of food for, say, a tank full of bluegill perch... they'll be waiting there poised, ready for something to hit the water. And when it does... BAM! then wait for the next one.

The major problem with raising perch (or even catfish for that matter) in a tank is that they aren't very efficient converters of food to body mass, especially when overstocked.

But this looks promising. Take local restaurant waste (or home food waste if that's what it takes) and toss it into the container daily, the larvae mature and crawl up the ramp and plop right down with the hungry fish. I find this a better option than feeding fish redworms because they have continuing value as a vermi-composter, whereas the soldier fly larvae does not at that stage.

I had been looking at an option to self-feed fish fly larvae, but had not found a suitable way to keep the putrid decaying drainage from dripping into the pond or tank with the larvae. This idea uses the fly's natural life cycle against it to separate it from its former living conditions is pure genius, and if nothing else, this is going to be used to design my own home-brewed device.

Once the sludge gets too deep, I can shovel it out, mix with a lot of old hay or straw, and either compost in the typical manner, or feed to the worms, which should be able to break it down further.

Great find Paul

so it doesn't have to be raw meat? now thats is something i could do for the chickens. I sort of have an idea of having a clotheline on pulleys over the pond to feed the fish this way but it would probably be to much of a hassle for me to keep it up. but just loading up one for the chickens nearby seems doable.

Wow!  Here they are in action!

http://www.eawag.ch/organisation/abteilungen/sandec/schwerpunkte/swm/projects/5000larvae/index_EN

wow is right!  I wonder how much time elapsed over the course of that video? it says they eat chicken poo also??!!! maybe I need to start a black fly larvae business and use all poo from the chicken farms around here. 

Isn't there a timer in the bottom right corner? 

I guess i missed the timer. Now my stupid computer is taking forever to load it. grrrrrrrr. It did just fine yesterday. 

I think it is less than 24 hours.

really! that is incredible! I bet you could dehydrate the little buggers and save them for winter feed too.

According to the author of the page on Paul's first post, they will generate enough heat in the winter time that they will still reduce waste, though they may not grow to maturity. I kinda think that a few vats of these plus some earthworms would reduce household waste (even toilet) to absolutely nothing. These little buggers will eat almost anything and do it very quickly.

Gotta love nature.

Things like this make me wonder sometimes if there are other insect, or lower creatures which can be farmed or raised for our benefit. Bees and earthworms are noteworthy, but there are billions of species of insects.

Can these larvae co-habitate with earthworms?  Some 'bugs' are predators.

And where would a person buy the larvae to get started?

I emailed the author of the site that Paul referenced. He said that what's best is to let the residue build up and then scoop it out and feed it to earthworms after all the larvae have left. From the looks of things you could put an immense amount of kitchen scraps/restaurant waste into one of these and they would break it down to next to nothing.

He said there's a large amount of information that's been compiled about direct feeding these to carnivorous fish such as bass, trout, etc.

I once had a chunk of 16 inch PVC pipe that i stood up and used as a compost bin in my garden. I cleaned out the freezer of frostbitten meat and threw that in there. Three days later the pipe overflowed with larvae. Those that couldn't escape simply died and the earthworms ate them eventually.

This design makes most of your mass and nutrients leave the system through the larvae. Therefore as fish bait these will rob nutrients. In a closed loop system (like feed your fish or your chickens that you will eat) this is ideal.

I don't know about starter larvae, but the inventor said something about there being a hormone or something that the flies secrete that draw others of their species and scare off other fly species. If you read a lot from this guy's site you will note that there is a jar on the bottom that draws the liquid off of the bottom. This is the "tea" that's used to start other colonies.

Upon reading further, he also notes that only the black soldier flies seem to be able to climb out at prescribed the 30-35 degree angle. This would not allow other fly larvae to escape, and in fact trap them inside until they perished and became the next meal. Eventually (assuming that Black soldier flies are as plentiful and widespread as the inventor claims) they should colonize this sludge and take over, at which point the larvae will be strong enough to leave. Then you have your starter for the next colony. Neat huh?

I found a link to this site in an article about soldier flies.  There are links to suppliers on this site.

http://thebiopod.com/

There's been a lot of discussion of BSF on the BYAP forum.  Quittrack is right that they seem to be great as a feed into a closed loop system.

I heard Bill Mollison talk once about composting with roaches on an island.  The roaches then leave the island once mature and get eaten by the fish.  Same principle.

If you are looking to attract/start a population, you can look for "phoenix worms" on reptile supply sites.

so how are the larvae replaced as they leave?  does the scent mentioned attract wild adults to lay more eggs?  I'm likely outside the range of wild soldier flies and I'm relatively sure they wouldn't survive a winter here outside.  would locating a BSF setup in a moderately sized greenhouse allow a breeding population to survive and maintain high numbers of larvae?

They mate and lay within two to four days of getting their wings. Repopulation should not be an issue.

if the bin of larvae is set up so that they crawl out into the waiting jaws of a fish or beak of a chicken, though, they won't be getting their wings at all.  so would maintaining a small, auxiliary bin of larvae that don't meet their doom upon maturity be the way to go?  or maybe some of the larvae don't crawl out and mature right in the bin?

The set ups I've seen have the exit chute empty into a bucket. If there's some dry soil in the bucket they'll cocoon up and grow wings. Most will take the bucket to the beasts instead of auto-feed right into their habitat (but auto feeding does sound like an awesome idea for an aquaponic system). If there's some dry soil in the bucket they'll cocoon up and grow wings.

so if I let a few live, they'll repopulate the bin?  how many eggs does one of these critters lay?

Nicholas Covey wrote:
I emailed the author of the site that Paul referenced. He said that what's best is to let the residue build up and then scoop it out and feed it to earthworms after all the larvae have left. From the looks of things you could put an immense amount of kitchen scraps/restaurant waste into one of these and they would break it down to next to nothing.

If you do this you will cause your worm bin to become a black soldier fly breeding ground unless you can keep the soldier flies out.  It's not easy.  I've got a worm bin and a soldier fly bin.  Yes, the worms love the soldier fly residue but if you end up with soldier flies in your compost bin they will out compete your worms for the food and you won't end up with any worm compost worth a crap.

stalk_of_fennel wrote:
If you do this you will cause your worm bin to become a black soldier fly breeding ground unless you can keep the soldier flies out.  It's not easy.  I've got a worm bin and a soldier fly bin.  Yes, the worms love the soldier fly residue but if you end up with soldier flies in your compost bin they will out compete your worms for the food and you won't end up with any worm compost worth a crap.

How big are the larvae?  Can you sift them out from the compost before putting in the worm bins?  Or are they too easy to miss?  Maybe you can transfer the sifted compost to an empty BSF bucket with the entrance holes blocked (so new larvae don't enter) for a few days first, just to make sure they are all gone?

natschultz wrote:
How big are the larvae?  Can you sift them out from the compost before putting in the worm bins?  Or are they too easy to miss?  Maybe you can transfer the sifted compost to an empty BSF bucket with the entrance holes blocked (so new larvae don't enter) for a few days first, just to make sure they are all gone?

Making sure they're all gone is one thing.  The thing I'm worried about is that the BSF residue/compost (it's not really compost) smells of black soldier fly pheromones and will attract new black soldier flies to invade and lay eggs in your worm bin.

stalk_of_fennel wrote:
Making sure they're all gone is one thing.  The thing I'm worried about is that the BSF residue/compost (it's not really compost) smells of black soldier fly pheromones and will attract new black soldier flies to invade and lay eggs in your worm bin.

if all the food for the soldier flies is gone, they'll still lay eggs in the stuff they leave behind?

tel jetson wrote:
if all the food for the soldier flies is gone, they'll still lay eggs in the stuff they leave behind?

I'm pretty sure they will.  The smell of soldier flies attracts other soldier flies to lay their eggs there.  They also don't lay their eggs in the 'compost'.  They lay hundress of tiny eggs above the mess.  As they hatch they fall/crawl down into the 'compost'.

eggs

stalk_of_fennel wrote:
I'm pretty sure they will.  The smell of soldier flies attracts other soldier flies to lay their eggs there.  They also don't lay their eggs in the 'compost'.  They lay hundress of tiny eggs above the mess.  As they hatch they fall/crawl down into the 'compost'.

eggs

will it matter if the eggs are there if there's nothing for them to eat?  they won't grow without food, right?  maybe they'll just end up as more food for the worms.

I think somebody should go ahead and try it.  it's on my list of things to do.  if nobody reports back here that it was a disaster before I get around to it, maybe I'll be the one to find out that it doesn't work.