The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Black soldier fly larvae for chickens

Black soldier fly larvaeI think we may have found a partial solution to our goal of feeding our chickens without storebought ingredients.  Black soldier fly larvae can be grown in worm-bin-like containers, decomposing food scraps.  The best part is that when the larvae reach full size, they naturally crawl out of the container and fall into a bucket on the side.  You can just remove the collection bucket once a day and feed the high protein larvae directly to your chickens.

This article by Harvey Ussery has all of the information you need.  He uses a pre-made container that costs $179, but I strongly suspect we can build something just as effective on our own for pennies.  Unfortunately, this project will have to wait until spring since black soldier flies are dormant in cold weather.  I can barely wait!



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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And yes, the BSF aren't particular about what their house looks like. The professioal model makes things more convenient... but it's not in my future.
Comment by Joe Barfield Wed Nov 11 19:35:14 2009
I'd be very curious to see what your homemade bin looks like, if you have pictures anywhere on the internet....
Comment by anna Thu Nov 12 12:02:55 2009





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