Chicken Food<-Fly Larvae<-King Stropharia

Hello, I was reading a passage from Fungi Perfecti talking about feeding salmon with fly larvae that naturally grows inside king stropharia mushroom.

Any opinions on if this would be a viable way to feed chicken???

http://www.fungi.com/mycotech/permaculture.html
"King Stropharia is an excellent edible mushroom when young. However, its edibility quickly declines as the mushrooms mature. Fly larvae proliferate inside the developing mushrooms. In raising silver salmon, I found that when I threw mature mushrooms into the fish-holding tank, they would float. Fly larvae soon emerged from the mushrooms, struggling for air. Soon the fish were striking the large mushrooms to dislodge the swollen larvae into the water where they were eagerly consumed. After several days of feeding mushrooms to the fish, the salmon would excitedly strike at the King Stropharia in anticipation of the succulent, squirming larvae as the mushrooms hit the water. Inadvertently, I had discovered that King Stropharia is a good base medium for generating fish food."

that sounds very interesting.  I tried growing a few different types of mushrooms this year, but all failed.  Not quite sure why they failed, most likely moisture or pH issues.  It's not as easy as it looks!

they sure make it sound easy 

yeah, for sure.  I have tons of books and mushrooms resources, and they all make it sound very easy.

I think it is like anything, there is a bit of a learning curve.  Once you get beyond the beginner stage, it is probably fairly easy.

I do a lot of thinking about this subject of 'easy' supplemental chicken feed.... and I've tried worm farming, but none of it so far is easy.  Moving the chickens would be easier   But I live in the city with limited land.

I wonder about raising mice as winter protein - it could be done in the kids bedroom maintaining the parents as pets - maybe two birds with one stone (breeding pair).  Chickens really love mice.

You can look into the insects/larvae raised by those who keep large lizards.

And of course there is this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dIc1czSpiI but it is mostly a summer time project.

I have had a very easy time with earthworms, and I give them to the chickens daily.  It would be better if I could figure out how to let the chickens harvest the worms themselves....

Raising crickets, mealworms, wax worms, and other live insects are fairly easy, actually.

The mice idea is interesting.  I really dislike mice, and wouldn't want to have them in the house, but for someone who could stand them, it might not be a bad idea.

Another thought is using the waste from another animal project.  I raise rabbits, and currently, I use the rabbit manure as worm food.  I also give the guts/waste to the dogs and pigs when we slaughter rabbits, but it could as easily go to the chickens.

I like the concept of black soldier flies, but I don't know where I could get the starter larvae.  I don't think they are around here, naturally (Northen Mexico), cause I have never seen one, and believe me, I've looked.

If you could get a decent population going, that would be a great way to go.

Here is a site where you may (during the right season) find sources for buying the Fly's http://thebiopod.com/

Lot of work to grow mushies just to feed the fish. Guess if you had a surplus of infested mushrooms it would be ok.

Black soldier flies are the way to go. Super easy too.

Just get a bucket (I use a 55 gal food grade barrel) drill a few drain holes and fill 1/3 with wood chips then 1/3 food scraps and top with more wood chips/leaves.

Then sit back and wait. The top layer of chips keep the house flies away. Add more scraps and chips weekly.

Just scoop out a coffee can full of wigglers for my birds. Next year I'll be leaning the barrel at  45deg to get them to self harvest.

Hey Vela- once you get them you should be able to keep them going easy enough. All the adults do is mate and lay eggs...then die.

One of the problems that I have is shipping.  Since I am in Mexico, no one can really ship to me, so I have to arrange to meet the package in the US, which means I have to time things "just right", to make sure the larvae are not sitting in a post box somewhere for too long.  It is a tricky situation.

I think a better plan would be to get a friend growing them in the states, then go and visit that friend.

I like the earthworms in terms of outputs.  Not as much live meat, but tons of great compost.  I guess a combo of things could work, here.

Another thing is that if you grow mushrooms on waste straw/manure, the substrate could them go to the BSF.  Folks feed watse mushrooms substrate to cows/pigs, so it would be fine to go through the larvae.

I would be interested in seeing how they do with humanure as well.  Earthworms do great with that, and if you can turn that into a food product for chickens/pigs, that is a wonderful thing.

I wonder if the larvae waste could be digested in a methane digester?  If so, some reall possibilities are starting to form.

You could go:
Ag waste >> mushrooms >> BSF/earthworms >> methane >> fields/plants  You would have a lot of products coming off that cycle.  If the agriculture products were biofuel crops (like alcohol), you could get even more products.  Mushrooms are worth real money (more than $3/lb), BSF/worms go to chickens/pigs/fish, methane for cooking.  In addition, you would want to gather the chicken/pig/fish manure for the methane, if appropriate. 

Lots of possibilities, here!

Vela- I'd be happy to mail you some dormant BSF. They're very tough, read somewhere that a grub will survive submerged in rubbing alcohol for hours, so they shouldn't mind sitting in a box for a few days.

Interesting idea on the methane digester, but as I know it the BSF don't leave much waste...100 lbs in = 5 lbs out.

Also be wary of putting the BSF waste into your worm bin as their chem odor will attract more BSF that will take over the worm bin.

their chem odor will attract more BSF that will take over the worm bin

That's if you have females around you naturally, which I don't.

Yeah, their methane yield may not be enough, but the manure/waste from the animals that you feed the BSF to should cover it.

In any case, you could definitely use waste from another stream, like mushrooms, to feed the BSF and your earthworms.  I could never replace my earthworms, I like them too much! LOL

Thanks for the offer of BSF.  PM me, so we can talk about details on that.  I am definitely interested, and I'd pay you for them, as well as shipping.

Jami McBride wrote:I do a lot of thinking about this subject of 'easy' supplemental chicken feed.... and I've tried worm farming, but none of it so far is easy.  Moving the chickens would be easier   But I live in the city with limited land.

I wonder about raising mice as winter protein - it could be done in the kids bedroom maintaining the parents as pets - maybe two birds with one stone (breeding pair).  Chickens really love mice.

You can look into the insects/larvae raised by those who keep large lizards.

And of course there is this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dIc1czSpiI but it is mostly a summer time project.

I also do a lot of thinking on this topic..at the end of the day its about feeding yourself.

I have been using my red worms to supplement feed to my 2 chinese water dragons. Actually, its a good 3/4 of their diet but that is only 6 worms a day from a WF360.
I could imagine a larger vermiculture operation could produce much much more protein

When I had BSF in Georgia, I fed them all manner of vile stuff successfully; including quantities of poisonous mushrooms (I particularly remember a big flush of Amanita muscaria-which, ironically, gets it's name from being used as a fly poison!), which they would devour with aplomb, and the resulting pupae providing excellent poultry food. Slaughter trash and humanure were among the many other things which I subjected to this wonderful conversion! BSF's rock. They take recycling to the next level....