Hello fly people! New to the sub so if it’s a question that is asked every other day, I’ll take the criticisms.

I’m thinking of building a BSF farm to feed my chickens (not their main diet, just a little side project for my own enjoyment and hopefully for the birds too).

I’ve seen this setup and was hoping to use roadkill as a main part of the BSF diet. I live in southern Tasmania which is unfortunately a road kill hotspot of small wildlife but it means I always have access to fresh carcasses.

I’ve been told that BSF can pass on pathogens to chickens and that the main feed source should be vegetable scraps. Can anyone share any resources/information/experiences that could help me shape my knowledge about these magical little creatures?

Thanks!

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I have my farm going pretty well, but I feel the pupating is irregular & not sure why. I use a coconut core substrate & move pre-pupates into it regularly. My farm was zinging for months - huge hatches. But something changed & I am not sure what. I did notice that my pupating chamber gained a significant amount of young larva. I assume there were eggs laid above it. I have now re-booted it.

My substrate is about 3” deep. Temps in the box are between 75 & 95. Substrate is kept moist. Also, if the post pupate shells get too dense, can that be a problem?

I have two indoor boxes going. Climate controlled room. One for breeding & pupating. One for growing.

Thank you for your opinions.

- Update - Back to getting good hatches.

My 3 best guesses:

1. Trying to minimizing the energy costs of the climate control came at the expense of fresh air. I noticed the Ammonia gas was getting really high - would burn my nose when I went in to service the farm. I added ventilation & the Ammonia gas dissipated. Started getting hatches about a week later. I am using chicken feed & have heard that the protein creates higher Ammonia?

2. It occurred to me that I had become lax about the stage of larva I was transferring to the pupating chamber. I was getting some larva in my crawl out that wasn’t black & was dumping them into the pupating chamber. I wonder if the constant disruption in the substrate from the non-pupating larva was effecting the pupating larva? I tightened up my crawl out system & eliminated this condition - only pupating larva into the breeding chamber - started having a strong hatch in a week.

3. Maybe the life cycle just wanted to screw with me to keep me humble 😂

Wow these little fellas can eat!

I am raising broiler chickens in Egypt and I want to reduce the cost of feed by using black soldier fly larvae (BSFL). How much fresh BSFL should I give to each chick per day at different ages? Can BSFL replace part of the commercial feed? I also want to use cheap grains and green plants. What would be a balanced and safe feeding plan?

Hey y’all, I’ve been working on a BSFL bin design that answers most of the headaches of raising safe and healthy BSFL and I came up with the Grubhouse. Check out this video explaining it and let me know what you think. It has walls made out of shade cloth for airflow, dual pre-pupae exit ramps, a grub track to catch the self harvesters and in case of a mass exodus the track also catches all the escapees. It has magnetic egg traps as well, for easy egg checking. I’m planning on making add-ons as well, like a portable breeding cage to place it in and things like a hardware cloth protector for rodents.

I have a huge container I was worm farming and bsfl joined in naturally. I now want to keep the bsfl coming and not sure how to. Should I butterfly tent the whole container so the adults just stay in it and reproduce? Also slightly worried about house flies starting in it as I'm adding lots more food as they just go through it so fast. Any advice or links into good information would be appreciated.

Two weeks ago I went out into the shed I use for my herd of BSF with a butterfly net and caught about 20 adults that were free flying, not ones that emerged in my mating tent. I stuck them all in a half gallon mason jar with the lid loose and a cup of moistened chicken feed in the bottom and today I have about 4" of grubs wiggling around, just transferred to grow out bins filled with chicken litter and bedding.

Apparently "lay eggs here or not at all" works great

Just wondering if this set up looks good and if there's any suggestions to make the set up any better?

I was using this old stainless trash can with a plastic insert as an intermediary dump bin for my compost tumbler and bumped into a brand new kind of friend this year. The steel can is hollow at the bottom and the insert had a crack which I've now shoved some shims into to better allow migration. It sits on a raised bed I regularly dump/bury waste in. Zone 6b pennsylvania.

Only issue so far is the adults like to congregate in my basement! Been trying make sure to turn all the lights off down there to keep them out though, lol.

It's amazing the things I can toss in - like leftover wet cat food that would otherwise very quickly get nasty in the kitchen waste bin this time of year.

Ignore the lemon..

I am in Raleigh and have a metal compost tumbler that has been colonized by BSF. They are doing a great job going through my compost and I would like to make sure that they do not abandon it. Should I just keep it well stocked and not otherwise interfere? If not, what should I do? Thanks!

I live in the lower mainland of BC Canada and am looking to start a small scale farm. I understand this is not their preferred habitat but they have been reported nearby. I’ve seen the cardboard method but am worried I would attract the wrong species. Any advice or another species I should know about?

I want to raise bsfl for fishing baot n poultry feed so no human consumption of them but was curious is there anything i shouldnt feed them

Such as dairy like old milk moldy foods poop
human dog n chicken organs greases/ cooking fats

Also if i put a animal skull in the bin would they be able to fully clean it like dermisid beetles or?

Hello 🙂 I am just starting out with BSFLs and have repurposed and old worm farm for them and am looking for feedback and advise. I have added 250 BSFLs from a local supplier to get it started.

I lined it with cardboard as I didnt consider the size of the drainage holes when I made the bin, they are definitely big enough for the BSFL to fall through and I have used cococoir as substrate

Will this work as a semi closed system if I put in some cardboard for the flies to lay their eggs or do I need to add an entry point on the lid?

I'm having a mass exodus of BSF larvae from my tumbler and I'm worried they're overheating. It's been 100-105F highs the last couple days. The ones leaving in mass are all this color and not yellow, so I was wondering if it was because they're just ready to pupate? I put a frozen water bottle wrapped in a towel in the tumbler yesterday just because I'm so worried they're too hot. These larvae were also put in a bucket with dry finished compost and some dead weeds with a mesh over the top in the hope that they'll become flies but any advice is welcome please!

It got stuck on my window. I will try to present it to my composter

So I've been top dressing my 20" vegetable pots with about 1 - 1.5" of the used bsfl 'compost' after they're all gone (I cycle trays, so one will age out while a new one's getting started). But I read the stuff's too 'hot' for the plants right away, even tho I let it sit for a few weeks. So I felt bad, and I went to take it off my rhubarb, which had developed some discoloration (might be too wet tho), then my cucumbers. Well, the cuke's had grown a ton of roots right all up thru it, they seem to love it. They're fruiting like crazy too, just picked 7 this morning. Should I not worry then?

Pics of how my trays start, how they end up, and the cuke plants, which are at least 8" taller than in the pic, just 3 days later. I also add a thin layer of peat moss to my trays, to make sure they don't get too goopy with all the scrap juices, and add a bit more if they're too wet.

Has anyone ever rigged something up in one of these bins for self-harvesting or do I need to pioneer this thing?

I have built a wooden bin before that worked well (previous home) but don't have ample space or time to make that happen in my current location. I'm curious if anyone has by chance had any success in harvesting out of one of these?

I have done extensive BSFL composting on meat and bones. The bones don't break down much so now I'm left with a big pile of leftover bones after the BSFL have processed them. What can I do with the bones?

I am having some success, but I feel like I am pounding my pupate tubs with pupates & not getting a ton of flies out.

Is moist coconut coir 2.5” deep an appropriate substrate for them to transform?