All stages of the larvae are safe to feed to animals. If you tried really really hard you might be able to produce some toxic BSF larvae but you would have to consistently feed the colony with putrid meats, etc. If your colony smells like death you’ve done something terribly wrong and I wouldn’t feed the resulting larvae to another animal. BSF are repelled by the anaerobic conditions that lead to that type of toxicity so it would be difficult to mess up so badly.

I don’t know anything about chickens except that their meat stays moister while cooking if you brine it first. If they’re anything like the stray peacock (hen) that showed up at our place I might have a clue. I’ve trained the peahen to come and take BSF grubs from me and often I’ll give her all I have with me. (She comes around when I’m fishing at my pond.) A few times I had several hundred larvae and in those cases she reached a limit to what she wanted and stopped eating on her own. She’s a big bird of course and she’s eaten a few hundred at a time I would guess.

If you want better info about chickens you might try posting in this thread at Backyard Chickens: http://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11556

Some types of ants might not bother the BSF other than competing for food, but I know that some will prey on the eggs and maybe on the grubs too.

What do the ants mean & are they hurting the grubs/compost. I am not sure if they are fire ants or something else.

How do I get the ants out of the bin?
Thanks for any help offered.

Salli

I have to be honest and say that I haven’t considered mites. I only feed my grubs to my pond fish and I’m not aware of the problem. I do know that when Dr. Sheppard raises BSF larvae for sale as Phoenix Worms (his brand) he does it under controlled conditions to eliminate the concerns of pet owners who buy them.

Maybe you could tell me something about mites. How would they enter the system? Would they cause problems if the BSF grubs were consumed immediately by your pets?

I’ve wondered if a bath in a mild bleach solution would deal with the parasite issue. Maybe you could even feed a grain paste to the BSF that contained a very small percentage of bleach. Humans treat water this way and I’m pretty sure BSF could tolerate it. Perhaps you could let the breeding happen outside where it’s simple to manage and then bring the juvenile grubs inside for a “cleansing diet”. Once indoors and purged the grubs could be fed a sterile grain mixture until it was time to feed them to the pets. I’m pretty sure there’s a way to deal with this issue given an outdoor breeding population.

Indoor breeding can be very tricky from what I’ve heard. I’ve read that BSF need at least a few square meters of space for mating since it’s usually done in flight. I know indoor breeding has been done, but I have no experience with it.

I love the website, it has lots of very pratical and useful info. I am doing research on breeding BSF larva for my reptiles and then expanding operations to supply fellow collectors, my question is this, with your setup being outside how do you keep it clean of parasites…….specifically mites?

My setup will be most likely indoors so that leads me to a second question…..breeding, is it viable to take say 20 pupae and place them in a 2 gallon jug with a lid and let form into adults which would then breed and lay eggs all within the same jug?

Thank you in advance for any advice to accelerate my learning curve.

Jason

Thanks,
Rebecca

I have a piece of plywood over the top of the compost pile and a population is staying in the area. With larger holes and smaller amounts of food to start, I’m able to harvest modest amounts–appetizer quantities for the catfish.

Today I started a new compost pile. Removed the plastic container and shoveled a bunch of the BSF grubs swarming underneath to the new pile, right on top of kitchen scraps.

Could you send a link for what you consider to be the best DIY harvesting system? Any advice on how to deploy cardboard in the vicinity of the compost pile to optimize egg laying?

Thanks again,
Rebecca

You can keep a BSF colony in any container or no container such as your compost pile. Managing a colony will be different depending on the container. A BioPod adds convenience and efficiency to BSF culturing by making it relatively easy to regulate moisture and heat, contain the grubs, protect the colony from predation, and to harvest the mature grubs.

BSF grubs in all stages are highly mobile and they will migrate away from a food source for a few different and commonly occurring reasons. If it gets just a little too hot in the colony the grubs will try to crawl away. In an open situation like a compost pile it’s not likely that many of them would return. If the amount of ready-to-consume food is insufficient to support the number of grubs in a particular food source I believe a percentage of grubs will abandon that food source and migrate away. A well designed BSF unit will effectively contain these migratory grubs. A BioPod or good DIY unit will provide us with a “captive audience” of concentrated and hungry BSF allowing us to maintain a colony that is more densely populated than a naturally occurring one. It’s this condition that gives us the ability to process so much food waste so quickly and efficiently.

BSF grubs naturally avoid light (photo-phobic). You’re likely to have better luck with your collection tub if it has a lid that blocks light. The series of photos I posted above was taken with the BioPod cover off, but it was replaced after each photo. I’ll mention this in my related posts if I neglected to originally.

The waste in a BSF can be stinky for a couple of reasons. If it was stinky when you added it then the grubs won’t make it any less stinky, at least not for some time. A balanced BSF colony smells like whatever you add to it, plus a smell that could be described as wet straw. Typically if you have foul odors in a BSF unit it’s because you have anaerobic conditions. Anaerobic bacteria are those that thrive in the absence of oxygen and the usualy result is a sewer type odor. Normally BSF grubs will effectively churn waste as they consume it and in doing so they carry air throughout the pile and maintain aerobic (with oxygen) conditions. Under those circumstances you will not experience bad odors. Anaerobic conditions can result from an accumulation of liquid which prevents air from getting to the bottom of the unit. It could also happen from over-feeding a colony because they don’t have the capacity to effectively churn the waste. In your case it sounds like the fish food paste sat around uneaten in a warm environment. As I said before, if the BSF had fully consumed the fish food it would have been nearly gone.

The food I used for bait in the series above was a mixture of cornmeal, fish pellets and water. I use a paste because the BSF can’t eat dry food and it also stays in the container better. You could use a wide variety of food for bait, especially if the grubs are very hungry. As I stated above, you aren’t likely to find very hungry grubs in an open compost pile because they migrate out the moment they perceive a lack of food.

I look forward to hearing about your progress! Thanks.