Joelene Gray

Thanks everyone for your input.

To be clear: Right now I am just growing this beautiful heaving mass of protein and throwing it on the humanure compost pile. It's not going to the chickens, but it seems like a huge waste of expensive protein. I don't really want to keep them out of the human waste because they break it down so quickly. It's impossible to block them, the only way would be to keep it too dry for their needs.

They outcompete other insects poo-wise so I am not particularly worried about pests.

I think if I want to feed them to chickens I should heat the larvae themselves. I did this in an oven once (not with humanure-fed ones) and I regretted it. Great product but cruel. I will experiment with leaving the bucket in the sun - temps are around 90-100F in the shade anyway so it wouldn't take much to heat it beyond that. If I heat the whole bucket then the waste should be bacteria free as well, shouldn't it?

Thanks for your suggestions.

I get BSF turning up in my basic humanure 5-gallon-bucket toilet, whether i want them or not. Although of course I do want them.

In an easy world, when the poo bucket is sufficiently heaving with soldierfly, I would just empty the whole thing into the chicken pen and start filling it again. I assume this would introduce pathogens into the chickens, whom I eat (eggs and meat).

What if I collect them as they leave the humanure bucket? This is a little awkward as the bucket is nicely plumbed in now, but could be done.

Basically, what is the least I can get away with to ensure that these wonderful poo-fueled soldierfly larvae can be put to good use and turned into eggs/chicken meat for us to consume.

*There are different people contributing to the humanure bucket all the time as people stay for a few weeks and move on.