The soldier fly larvae loves it very moist. Anyone that says different is lying. Its easier for them to eat, easier for them to move around and it keeps them cool. I've done barrels of compost tea, using grass and water and soldier flies would lay eggs in the barrels just over the water line. They grow big and healthy in there. I never used them but I've seen them thrive like this and all they had was grass!
I seriously love these guys! Every time I have food waste or garden waste, and I compost it, they come shortly after and break everything down for me and generally make the process wayyyyyy faster. I will also dig up some larvae and feed them to the race runners and green anoles in my yard.... they love eating those larva.
I recently found them in my compost tumbler and I honestly don't know how they got in but I'm trying to figure out how to make them stay so I can feed them to the chickens (coming soon)!
Black Soldier Fly are amazing primary decomposers. I had a population explosion last summer in my red wiggler bin and started looking into them. What I found out is that they love coffee grounds (my primary compost base in the worm bin at the time). The problem I ran into was that the temperature was getting to high for the worms, so I built a BSF bin and scooped as many as I could into it and started tossing all the table scraps over to it. Their frass goes to feed the red wigglers (who love it) and the BSF will be added to the food I start feeding my quail when I set them up, and my future aquaponics fish. One thing I've noticed is that when they are ready to pupate, they tend to follow whichever side of my bin has the most light coming in. So that could be something to take into consideration when trying to train them up the ramp into the funnel system. I can't wait for the warmth to get here on a regular basis, my BSFL population should explode again, especially since I've been tossing all the current pupae into a tub of dirt instead of feeding them off. I've had some really big larvae coming out of the bin on our warmer days this winter.
Thanks for this, it was an awesome full-info video. BSF is hard enough to understand from scratch, and you got it sorted from start to finish including fails! Love it. Keep it going dude! Regards from South Africa
You'll never find soldier fly and house fly larvae or adults together! The soldier flies always get rid of the house flies. If you take some of the pupae and the compost medium and put them in a large butter tub, you can store them in the refrigerator until next spring to start a new colony, and you won't need to buy them each year. What do you feed those eyebrows? lol
Hey love your eye brows 😍 by the way your eyes pop. I subscribed to your channel I don't have chicken but I do have coturnix quail. I found fly large in there cage so I looked that up and ran into your soldier fly larvae awesome!
The White hen that's guardian of the pipe is just like my Bossy Bertha! Queen of the coop, inquisitive, smart, and sassy! Thought it was just her but can see and hear that it's more likely the breed than mere personality. LOVE ♥️
First of all, thank you - great video. We have had a BSFL bin set up on our homestead for a couple of months now. We designed it in a big, blue plastic barrel. There is a screen of wire mesh in the bottom and a washing machine hose leading up and out of the barrel, down to a plastic bottle on the ground for self-harvesting. There has been a thriving army of larva in there since week three, but we have harvested VERY few of them. The problem seems to be that they are falling through the wire mesh and flowing out the bottom drain with the "leachtea". Last week I scooped all the contents out and added a sheet of plastic mesh fabric to see of it helped retain more larva. The next day there were about 30 in the bottle! I thought the problem was solved, but since that day I have harvested hardly any more larva and there are still lots in the liquid we're collecting. Also, our bin is producing WAY more leachtea than we expected. We're getting more than we can use (a 1.5 L bottle 2x per week)...WTF?! Any advice?
Hello, I loved your video but, I see that you have a big problem with ants ...! Ants eat the smallest larvae, so your population will not grow as fast and you like and also may lose it entirely. The solution is not a big deal. To keep the ants away from your larvae, place the container supports inside recycled plastic containers where you can keep an amount of water, it´s prevents the ants climb into the container and eat your larvae. I hope it helps you . Regards
Good idea...or maybe cooking oil so it won't rot the wooden legs. Would need some kinda lid mesh/ net that allows ants to fall in but chickens can't mess up the oil perhaps
I naturally have millions of those larvae in my compost. I had no idea what they were till today. $30 a jar, & I have barrels of them. I’m gonna be rich!!!
I’m all about this technique. Every farmer in the world should be using this method. The positives are tremendous. Let put some chemical food companies out of business and let the farmers make some money with all their hard work
I think you should build a new box, very much like the one you have with the exception that one entire wall is the ramp going into the henhouse. I think that the larvae will climb out on their own up the plywood and fall on the hen house floor. No need for funnels or pipes. Also you might try a lid that opens on a hinge with a slot in the wall below it which would allow the adults to go in easily. QUESTION ? What is the temperature requirements of the colony?
Really enjoyed your channel. Good information, thank you. Not sure if this is helpful but once I went bowling and (as a Newbie) stepped forward too far into the lane. I went down so fast it looked like I was never there in the first place. Whatever that lane material is, it is the slickest substance I’ve ever seen. True story. So if you need a good frictionless material for your design, there you go
Good job with the different niches and life stages for us. I have some in a compost pale, so I’m going to make bio pod today and get a population started.
Very cool system you set up. Nice to see you experiment to find what works. For the last 6 months I've been working with a plain trash can with a lid and it's working just fine, but I want to increase production and start feeding them to my chickens, as well as collect the frass to feed the garden. Enjoying your vids, thanks!
Thank god for epic gardening or else I wouldn’t have discovered you! I love your UA-cam channel man. Also thanks for the black soldier fly farm because I’ve been wanting to start one for a long time to feed to my future chickens and also my fish.
Soldier flys come to my quail hutch in the summer and eat up all the manure. They make great compost, and I don’t have to shovel at all in the summer. I wish they could survive the winter in Kentucky.
It's a great "Homemade Sustainable Agricultural System". I hope you could have enough support in the future so you can convert this wise project into a commercial project. Good luck, and best wishes from Saudi Arabia.
Wow, this is a great video! I've been searching like crazy for info on BSFL small scale farming/composting and this is by far the best one I've found. I live in southeastern Washington state and don't believe there is much of a natural population here so I'm trying to figure out how to create a self sustaining lifecycle. Your setup looks very promising and I want to give it a try here! Thanks so much!
Hey thanks so much for saying that. That's why I made this video! We need more good info out there, but I'm still learning myself so I hope to keep putting stuff out every year on it. Good luck with your set up!
i find the soldier flys lay eggs under the box lid. i put cardboard in a clump at attach it to the underside of the lid with zipties. they happily lay in the cardboard. Great video
Very interesting. Thank you for publishing something that's rare. Looking forward to seeing more progress videos on this; especially any design improvements.
Thanks, glad you are into it! Oh ya will be putting out how I built my box next video. I'll need to make a version 2.0 I'm thinking though after everything I've learned from using it.
i found soldier fly larvae growing under my rabbit pens. i had no idea what they were but noticed there were no fly maggots in their manure anymore. i am researching to find out how i can utiiize them to feed quail, ducks and chickens. thanks for you informative video
Have an idea to contain the adults, and compost more kinds of things! I have an idea that goes with your already existing setup. Build a screen room around your bin, big enough to enter and maintain it. Since you think verticle, go with that. The screen room will contain the adults. They don't live long or eat. Once they die, their carcasses become food for the larvae, as well. Soldier flies eat things that you normally cannot put into a regular compost bin or pile. (but you know that already or they wouldn't interest you). You can make a cover out of corregted cardboard by gluing strips of cardboard together (so the corregations run perpendicular to your bin) til it's big enough to cover your bin. It serves to allow for air movement and discourages the entrance of house flies, as a mechanical barrier to the actual bin. It is the "nest" for the adults to lay their eggs, which when once hatched, fall directly into the bin. Also they last long because it doesn't come into direct contact with the moisture. Once worn out, drop in the bin and they'll eat that, too! You essentially have a contained system. Once established, you don't need to worry about attracting adults. They'll aready be there! Also, when you do clean out your bins, put it into your worm bin (dried out) for further breakdown. Just a thought.
I like the idea a lot Franki, I've seen professional bsf farms that build their adult egg laying factories like that. I'm gonna build something more like this at my new farm. Thanks for the ideas super good!
Interesting. Have you looked into drying them for later feeding to your chickens. These always end up in the bed of my truck due to leaky garbage bags being thrown in there by my mother and brother with out telling me.
In commercial Asian BSF colonies, the adult flies are provided with upright screens of vertical artificial vines for them to gather en masse and mate on, a trellissed vine behind your farm will do the job.
Love your channel always so much good info. I've had black soldier fly larvae in my compost pile on and off for a few years. I didnt know what they were at first, so did some checking on line. They break down food fast so was happy with that, but I've since also learned the earthworms arent too happy with them in the compost, because they make it more acidic. Not ready yet to just have a bin for soldier flies, so will just keep an eye on how much coffe grounds I put in my pile as my research tells me the flies really like that, I already know my worms do. Thanks again for sharing!
Thanks for the video. I saw your video where some homestead channel was touring your farm quite some time ago. Just moved to our new property and if everything goes as planned we'll have our chickens within a couple weeks and then the next step is to get this going so I can feed them cheap. Thanks a lot!
Just something I just thought of but you could staple galvanized hardware cloth around the bottom of the bin... maybe underneath also... protecting the adult fly bin underneath from animals... adding some kind of door to allow maintenance obviously. Just a thought but it eliminates nuisance animals if done with alittle bit of creative thought... EXCELLENT VIDEO MY GUY!! Iv been researching chickens and your videos keeps popping up into my searches. On that note, I just subbed.
What a great sustainable way to run a farm. I'm interested see how it works out. Maybe play some smooth jazz to get the males and females in the mood.😚😋
Mating process is an delicately task. Suggestions: starting with 10 grams eggy or 1week hatched baby and you can start composing right away. We supply the eggy!
For a lot of my yard and garden projects, instead of 1/4" hardware mesh I use sheets of wire lathe (you get it down near the rebar). It comes in sheets and a lot of times it's cheaper than the mesh and easier to use, you just need some good tin snips.
This was my second season doing this. I failed the first season. Thank you for saying this as I have goals and dreams for garden and plants and seeds and one day farm but i have made so many mistakes....and failed so many times due to unpredictable things like weather combined with lack of foresight
Or if you're lucky enough they will invade your compost tumbler uninvited! I found your video because I was trying to figure out how maggots had invaded my enclosed system! Your video as always was very helpful, but for those thinking it's complicated... my little colony is thriving in my tumbler (multiple generations) and I've even found larvae on the top of the bin, the little daredevils! I will be moving them to their own home near my chicken coop because I want to feed my chickens AND my garden, and apparently BSFL do not produce compost.
I looked it up one day a few weeks ago, built it with stuff laying around. (I live in socal) Filled it up with fruit and vegi scraps, as of right now im doing 50-90 larva a day. May add 1-2 more boxes next year
Thanks for this video, I have a juvenile T and buy calci worms for her but end up euthanizing them before they become BSF's as I didn't know what to do with them, after watching this video I'm going to try to keep a colony myself. I'll keep you updated. Thanks again.👍🏻
Consider Aquaponics to grow veggies, fruit and Fish. The weather will not be our friend much longer and growing your own is just smart. BSF Larvae are favorites of fish, and we all know how much waste we produce.
Thank you for sharing! I find all your videos informative and that is what’s more important here, not your eyebrows. Keep sharing and spreading knowledge. 😊 👍🏼
Do you know how to preserve them? If you catch them in a bucket instead of feeding directly to chickens--how are they dried? You said they can be frozen? Do you freeze and then dry them out? I would like to preserve them so I can monitor how much the chickens eat. They sure love these! Thank you for the video!
i just discovered these today, i have never seen one in my life had no idea what they were, even with having a large compost i never noticed, nor have i seen a full grown fly, we no longer have now, but at first i was horrified, i had a large pot that just ended up turning into a small compost pot, it had corn meal and oats from my mealworm farm when i clean it every so often (and sometimes a lot of baby mealworms end up in this pot) it ended up being a compost pot after a while, and where i dump my oats and such when i clean the mealworm farm plus veggies and other kitchen stuff. but tonight i was drawn to the pot as i dropped a mealworm on top of an upside down pot that was loose in my dragon tank, instead of returning to the farm (sand in tank) i put outside for a bird, and a lizard grabbed it right away, (momentary happiness lol) so i thought &i wondered if any of the mealworms that ended up in this pot are still alive and or grew, i literally thought they survived and grew to HULK size lmao so i scooped up one, and took a pic using google lens which showed me what they were, here i am and now i am absolutely fascinated, but since i don't know or recall what i had in this compost pot since its been around for a while, very wet from the rains, we live in florida, very warm/hot, these would have been amazing food for my bearded dragons, again since i have no idea what they have been eating, i dont want to risk feeding my dragons these larva. but im thinking of now making a soldier fly larva farm for the dragons (outside!) using your ideas, my mealworm farm is for my gecko, this would be great to have so now i know how to care for them what they like etc, how good they are, and not to worry no matter how gross LOL. but thank you for this video. this is super helpful!! my dragons one day will thank you. oh and not to mention the lack of house flies we've had lately , it explains everything! tho we have a few large house flies but NO where as bad as it use to be,
if you put a resistance flap at the end of the bottle it may help more to disperse a larger number of them as to not get one chicken to hoard the pipe outlet. basically a flap with an adjustable spring, so when a weight threshold is reached it can't hold the flap up any more and dumps the "mass" of larvy instead of letting them fall one at a time. thou you may need to experiment to see what material the flap /spring assembly should be made of, idk what seasonal restraints may be in play/moisture/ temp etc... they'd all affect some of the parameters. hmmm i wonder if you could keep a biodome sort of add on that would be heated as to allow for full year round production of the bot flies??? maybe a little greenhouse?
Some farmers put piles of compost in the chicken run for the chickens to scratch and eat the worms, bugs, and larvae etc....Joe Salatin, and Justin Rodhes.
Wow, man this is so cool. Thank you so much for posting. I intend setting up my own BSF harvester to aid chicken feed as well as aquaponics in the near future. Thumbs up
I want to try and figure that out as well. My first idea is to use seedling heat mats to provide the extra heat to keep them going. But I'm worried doing it outdoors won't be possible because the flies don't stick around in the cold air. I think growing them indoors might be the only option for year round production.
You're just gonna have to get that greenhouse up and going huh? Greenhouse, compost inside to heat the greenhouse, BSF, and chickens scratching and turning your compost! Recipe for success!! Orrrrrr an epic fail..... lol!!
So the bottom plastic bin is so they live to fly status and reproduce since the top bid becomes food to the chickens. Right? Could you just do the top bin and let them reproduce faster or would you get too many too quick? Good video. Thanks
Instead of a steel mesh, what about using window screen mesh (fiberglass)? It won’t rust. Alternatively, use gutter or vent mesh (plastic, larger openings). Are you using steel because they can chew through plastic?
Thanks for the suggestion. I thought about window screen but I thought it was made from some unsafe plastic or something I didn't know it was fiberglass. I think that's a great option I'll experiment with both to see how water and particulate filter through it. I was just using parts I readily had available. I was putting this together at a time I was really busy with other things so I didn't fully think everything out. It needs to be redesigned a bit for next year.
Wow, thankyou for your awesome video. Anw i want to ask, how many times that you give all of the larvaes food in two weeks until its growup into pupae? 2x/day or what? And please tell us, what kind of food that you give to the larvaes in detail? I really excited for trying my own. Thanks.
When I create my BSFL bin, I'm going to look to avoid urea and formaldehyde glued woods and, if I use plastics, use BPA free and a plastic type that doesn't shed microplastics. My research continues. Thoughts? Thanks
I bought a Biopod some years ago. It is stinking and I want to get rid of the burlap I bought this spring that lays on top of larva. Wondering if wet newspaper would be okay instead. Live in SW Idaho where it is dry and hot now. Do you think moist newspaper would be okay? I have them crawling out into collection bucket prematurely as well. Mostly feeding them dry cat food that my cat refuses to eat and snails I collect off my hostas.
BSF's are most active at night, and chickens are not. they are looking for a place to dig in and wait for the next cycle. Dumping them into the chicken coop will feed your chickens in the day time, but at night they will crawl away and you will lose a lot of them. It would benefit your chickens more to have them drop into a container that you feed to the chickens in the daytime. Besides, when you feed the chickens, it's more entertaining for you and gets your chickens to trust you..
so if I live in the tropics I don't need to order them to start? And will the maggot bucket design work with this as well so I can just hang it in the coop and they eventually fall out the bottom and get gobbled up by the chickens and I don't have to handle them so much??? Also I live in an urban area with neighbors and businesses around. Can the bins be close like in a zone 1 or should it be more in a zone 3 etc. further or furthest from the house?
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I was going to complain about the blur at the beginning but this video is too informative and well put together to complain. nice job man! thanks
The soldier fly larvae loves it very moist. Anyone that says different is lying. Its easier for them to eat, easier for them to move around and it keeps them cool. I've done barrels of compost tea, using grass and water and soldier flies would lay eggs in the barrels just over the water line. They grow big and healthy in there. I never used them but I've seen them thrive like this and all they had was grass!
One if the best box designs ive seen is to incorporate the ramp into one end, so one entire end of the box is a ramp up and drops off into a trough.
I seriously love these guys! Every time I have food waste or garden waste, and I compost it, they come shortly after and break everything down for me and generally make the process wayyyyyy faster.
I will also dig up some larvae and feed them to the race runners and green anoles in my yard.... they love eating those larva.
I recently found them in my compost tumbler and I honestly don't know how they got in but I'm trying to figure out how to make them stay so I can feed them to the chickens (coming soon)!
Black Soldier Fly are amazing primary decomposers.
I had a population explosion last summer in my red wiggler bin and started looking into them. What I found out is that they love coffee grounds (my primary compost base in the worm bin at the time). The problem I ran into was that the temperature was getting to high for the worms, so I built a BSF bin and scooped as many as I could into it and started tossing all the table scraps over to it. Their frass goes to feed the red wigglers (who love it) and the BSF will be added to the food I start feeding my quail when I set them up, and my future aquaponics fish.
One thing I've noticed is that when they are ready to pupate, they tend to follow whichever side of my bin has the most light coming in. So that could be something to take into consideration when trying to train them up the ramp into the funnel system. I can't wait for the warmth to get here on a regular basis, my BSFL population should explode again, especially since I've been tossing all the current pupae into a tub of dirt instead of feeding them off. I've had some really big larvae coming out of the bin on our warmer days this winter.
Thanks for this, it was an awesome full-info video. BSF is hard enough to understand from scratch, and you got it sorted from start to finish including fails! Love it. Keep it going dude! Regards from South Africa
Really cool to see the day to day progression and you getting the entire life cycle to complete.
What a great science lesson for a child! Home schooling anyone???
You'll never find soldier fly and house fly larvae or adults together! The soldier flies always get rid of the house flies.
If you take some of the pupae and the compost medium and put them in a large butter tub, you can store them in the refrigerator until next spring to start a new colony, and you won't need to buy them each year.
What do you feed those eyebrows? lol
Hmm that's what happened to my house flies. Good to know.
Hey love your eye brows 😍 by the way your eyes pop. I subscribed to your channel I don't have chicken but I do have coturnix quail. I found fly large in there cage so I looked that up and ran into your soldier fly larvae awesome!
The White hen that's guardian of the pipe is just like my Bossy Bertha! Queen of the coop, inquisitive, smart, and sassy! Thought it was just her but can see and hear that it's more likely the breed than mere personality. LOVE ♥️
I have a little white leghorn who is queen hen too- she is so smart, always the first to do everything...must be the breed :) I just love her!!
that was cool to see the little bugger crawl to the top of the diving board and go for it! interesting little development process they go through
First of all, thank you - great video. We have had a BSFL bin set up on our homestead for a couple of months now. We designed it in a big, blue plastic barrel. There is a screen of wire mesh in the bottom and a washing machine hose leading up and out of the barrel, down to a plastic bottle on the ground for self-harvesting. There has been a thriving army of larva in there since week three, but we have harvested VERY few of them. The problem seems to be that they are falling through the wire mesh and flowing out the bottom drain with the "leachtea". Last week I scooped all the contents out and added a sheet of plastic mesh fabric to see of it helped retain more larva. The next day there were about 30 in the bottle! I thought the problem was solved, but since that day I have harvested hardly any more larva and there are still lots in the liquid we're collecting. Also, our bin is producing WAY more leachtea than we expected. We're getting more than we can use (a 1.5 L bottle 2x per week)...WTF?! Any advice?
Your ramp may be too steep?
Hello, I loved your video but, I see that you have a big problem with ants ...!
Ants eat the smallest larvae, so your population will not grow as fast and you like and also may lose it entirely. The solution is not a big deal. To keep the ants away from your larvae, place the container supports inside recycled plastic containers where you can keep an amount of water, it´s prevents the ants climb into the container and eat your larvae. I hope it helps you . Regards
Good idea...or maybe cooking oil so it won't rot the wooden legs. Would need some kinda lid mesh/ net that allows ants to fall in but chickens can't mess up the oil perhaps
@@mymai2792 Good idea and mosquitos won't grown in the oil and oil won't evaporate.
Love how community helps each other
Pro trick: you can watch series at flixzone. Me and my gf have been using it for watching loads of movies recently.
@Davis Wilson Yup, I've been using Flixzone for since november myself :D
I naturally have millions of those larvae in my compost. I had no idea what they were till today. $30 a jar, & I have barrels of them. I’m gonna be rich!!!
Please send me some!
Hi
I want import larva
Larvae me bro!!😁👍😁
I want a jar too!!
R u rich now?
I’m all about this technique. Every farmer in the world should be using this method. The positives are tremendous. Let put some chemical food companies out of business and let the farmers make some money with all their hard work
Good info and the fact that you credit other UA-camrs and link them, made me a subscriber!
I think you should build a new box, very much like the one you have with the exception that one entire wall is the ramp going into the henhouse. I think that the larvae will climb out on their own up the plywood and fall on the hen house floor. No need for funnels or pipes. Also you might try a lid that opens on a hinge with a slot in the wall below it which would allow the adults to go in easily. QUESTION ? What is the temperature requirements of the colony?
I love your style.
"They feed themselves to the chickens" lol
kkkkkk oh my that's the most interesting plant.
Really enjoyed your channel. Good information, thank you. Not sure if this is helpful but once I went bowling and (as a Newbie) stepped forward too far into the lane. I went down so fast it looked like I was never there in the first place. Whatever that lane material is, it is the slickest substance I’ve ever seen. True story. So if you need a good frictionless material for your design, there you go
Good job with the different niches and life stages for us. I have some in a compost pale, so I’m going to make bio pod today and get a population started.
Very cool system you set up. Nice to see you experiment to find what works. For the last 6 months I've been working with a plain trash can with a lid and it's working just fine, but I want to increase production and start feeding them to my chickens, as well as collect the frass to feed the garden. Enjoying your vids, thanks!
Have you updated yet
Thank god for epic gardening or else I wouldn’t have discovered you! I love your UA-cam channel man. Also thanks for the black soldier fly farm because I’ve been wanting to start one for a long time to feed to my future chickens and also my fish.
I love your eyebrows
😏😁
Thicc
am about to say the same hahaha
Dude, what is up with those??
Just for fun would you tell a Groucho Marx joke please !
Soldier flys come to my quail hutch in the summer and eat up all the manure. They make great compost, and I don’t have to shovel at all in the summer. I wish they could survive the winter in Kentucky.
It's a great "Homemade Sustainable Agricultural System". I hope you could have enough support in the future so you can convert this wise project into a commercial project. Good luck, and best wishes from Saudi Arabia.
Wow, this is a great video! I've been searching like crazy for info on BSFL small scale farming/composting and this is by far the best one I've found. I live in southeastern Washington state and don't believe there is much of a natural population here so I'm trying to figure out how to create a self sustaining lifecycle. Your setup looks very promising and I want to give it a try here! Thanks so much!
Hey thanks so much for saying that. That's why I made this video! We need more good info out there, but I'm still learning myself so I hope to keep putting stuff out every year on it. Good luck with your set up!
How do you get the bsf compost out of the bin?
i find the soldier flys lay eggs under the box lid. i put cardboard in a clump at attach it to the underside of the lid with zipties. they happily lay in the cardboard. Great video
Very interesting. Thank you for publishing something that's rare. Looking forward to seeing more progress videos on this; especially any design improvements.
Thanks, glad you are into it! Oh ya will be putting out how I built my box next video. I'll need to make a version 2.0 I'm thinking though after everything I've learned from using it.
i found soldier fly larvae growing under my rabbit pens. i had no idea what they were but noticed there were no fly maggots in their manure anymore. i am researching to find out how i can utiiize them to feed quail, ducks and chickens. thanks for you informative video
Have an idea to contain the adults, and compost more kinds of things!
I have an idea that goes with your already existing setup. Build a screen room around your bin, big enough to enter and maintain it. Since you think verticle, go with that. The screen room will contain the adults. They don't live long or eat. Once they die, their carcasses become food for the larvae, as well. Soldier flies eat things that you normally cannot put into a regular compost bin or pile. (but you know that already or they wouldn't interest you). You can make a cover out of corregted cardboard by gluing strips of cardboard together (so the corregations run perpendicular to your bin) til it's big enough to cover your bin. It serves to allow for air movement and discourages the entrance of house flies, as a mechanical barrier to the actual bin. It is the "nest" for the adults to lay their eggs, which when once hatched, fall directly into the bin. Also they last long because it doesn't come into direct contact with the moisture. Once worn out, drop in the bin and they'll eat that, too! You essentially have a contained system. Once established, you don't need to worry about attracting adults. They'll aready be there! Also, when you do clean out your bins, put it into your worm bin (dried out) for further breakdown. Just a thought.
I like the idea a lot Franki, I've seen professional bsf farms that build their adult egg laying factories like that. I'm gonna build something more like this at my new farm. Thanks for the ideas super good!
Interesting. Have you looked into drying them for later feeding to your chickens. These always end up in the bed of my truck due to leaky garbage bags being thrown in there by my mother and brother with out telling me.
Native to many places, called privey fly cuz they were common in outhouses. Native to my part of Oregon. Thanks for your ideas.
In commercial Asian BSF colonies, the adult flies are provided with upright screens of vertical artificial vines for them to gather en masse and mate on, a trellissed vine behind your farm will do the job.
You just decided to roll with the completely out of focus shot? Bold move, Eyebrows. Bold move.
Hahahhaah! It's what I'm all about lol
LMAO balls of galvanized steel
Eyebrows lmao
The eyebrows themselves are bold AF.
Im dying 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Love your channel always so much good info. I've had black soldier fly larvae in my compost pile on and off for a few years. I didnt know what they were at first, so did some checking on line. They break down food fast so was happy with that, but I've since also learned the earthworms arent too happy with them in the compost, because they make it more acidic. Not ready yet to just have a bin for soldier flies, so will just keep an eye on how much coffe grounds I put in my pile as my research tells me the flies really like that, I already know my worms do. Thanks again for sharing!
I'm so glad I found this video because I was trying to make an attrcant to the bsf but they weren't coming to lay eggs.
One of the best channels on UA-cam. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Danny!
I always find large amounts of soldier fly larvae in decomposing pine shaving chicken brooder house bedding.
I got lots of these in my outside compost. Glad to know they are beneficial!
Thanks for such a great video. We're going to start on our black soldier fly larvae adventure this spring.
Thanks for the video. I saw your video where some homestead channel was touring your farm quite some time ago.
Just moved to our new property and if everything goes as planned we'll have our chickens within a couple weeks and then the next step is to get this going so I can feed them cheap.
Thanks a lot!
I'm now more excited to grow some fly than grow some vegetables in my garden. Really video ! Keep it up ;)
They appear in my compost bin without any invitation!
Just something I just thought of but you could staple galvanized hardware cloth around the bottom of the bin... maybe underneath also... protecting the adult fly bin underneath from animals... adding some kind of door to allow maintenance obviously.
Just a thought but it eliminates nuisance animals if done with alittle bit of creative thought... EXCELLENT VIDEO MY GUY!!
Iv been researching chickens and your videos keeps popping up into my searches. On that note, I just subbed.
My worm bin is overwhelmed by bsfl. Going to need to build a way for them to get out of there. Thanks for the ideas.
I ve been thinking of how to get bsf eggs, until I learnt that bsf do not lay eggs in a waste but on top of potential food source. Great video.
1 percent of the comments: Wow! So Cool!
99 percent: *eyebrows*
What a great sustainable way to run a farm. I'm interested see how it works out.
Maybe play some smooth jazz to get the males and females in the mood.😚😋
Mating process is an delicately task. Suggestions: starting with 10 grams eggy or 1week hatched baby and you can start composing right away. We supply the eggy!
A spot of jazz flute, now that is baby making music!
For a lot of my yard and garden projects, instead of 1/4" hardware mesh I use sheets of wire lathe (you get it down near the rebar). It comes in sheets and a lot of times it's cheaper than the mesh and easier to use, you just need some good tin snips.
Sweet thanks so much for the suggestion I'll check that stuff out next time I'm in home depot.
@@NaturesAlwaysRight Thanks again for the great content. My flock of chickens may be dining on soldierfly larvae soon thanks to your tutorials.
They’re also very very good for Fish keepers too!
This was my second season doing this. I failed the first season. Thank you for saying this as I have goals and dreams for garden and plants and seeds and one day farm but i have made so many mistakes....and failed so many times due to unpredictable things like weather combined with lack of foresight
Vhat about putting a heat lamp on a temp controller as the nights get colder?
Always love your content l. I am living vicariously through you. Keep it up!
This is such a great tip - we're working on our compost AND looking for extra treats for the girls.
super........ty......need protien for the quail project that I am about 3 months into.
You can use woodprix to build it in the cheapest way.
Thanks Shantay
Or if you're lucky enough they will invade your compost tumbler uninvited! I found your video because I was trying to figure out how maggots had invaded my enclosed system! Your video as always was very helpful, but for those thinking it's complicated... my little colony is thriving in my tumbler (multiple generations) and I've even found larvae on the top of the bin, the little daredevils! I will be moving them to their own home near my chicken coop because I want to feed my chickens AND my garden, and apparently BSFL do not produce compost.
I looked it up one day a few weeks ago, built it with stuff laying around. (I live in socal) Filled it up with fruit and vegi scraps, as of right now im doing 50-90 larva a day. May add 1-2 more boxes next year
I’m waiting to see the lifecycle of the caterpillars on your eyebrows.
Thanks for this video, I have a juvenile T and buy calci worms for her but end up euthanizing them before they become BSF's as I didn't know what to do with them, after watching this video I'm going to try to keep a colony myself. I'll keep you updated. Thanks again.👍🏻
Consider Aquaponics to grow veggies, fruit and Fish. The weather will not be our friend much longer and growing your own is just smart. BSF Larvae are favorites of fish, and we all know how much waste we produce.
What's a juvenile T?
@@powerof4200 probably a t rex
@@powerof4200 a young tarantula
Thank you for sharing! I find all your videos informative and that is what’s more important here, not your eyebrows. Keep sharing and spreading knowledge. 😊 👍🏼
Thanks!
Thank you my friend!
Do you know how to preserve them? If you catch them in a bucket instead of feeding directly to chickens--how are they dried? You said they can be frozen? Do you freeze and then dry them out? I would like to preserve them so I can monitor how much the chickens eat. They sure love these! Thank you for the video!
i just discovered these today, i have never seen one in my life had no idea what they were, even with having a large compost i never noticed, nor have i seen a full grown fly, we no longer have now, but at first i was horrified, i had a large pot that just ended up turning into a small compost pot, it had corn meal and oats from my mealworm farm when i clean it every so often (and sometimes a lot of baby mealworms end up in this pot) it ended up being a compost pot after a while, and where i dump my oats and such when i clean the mealworm farm plus veggies and other kitchen stuff.
but tonight i was drawn to the pot as i dropped a mealworm on top of an upside down pot that was loose in my dragon tank, instead of returning to the farm (sand in tank) i put outside for a bird, and a lizard grabbed it right away, (momentary happiness lol) so i thought &i wondered if any of the mealworms that ended up in this pot are still alive and or grew, i literally thought they survived and grew to HULK size lmao
so i scooped up one, and took a pic using google lens which showed me what they were, here i am and now i am absolutely fascinated, but since i don't know or recall what i had in this compost pot since its been around for a while, very wet from the rains, we live in florida, very warm/hot, these would have been amazing food for my bearded dragons, again since i have no idea what they have been eating, i dont want to risk feeding my dragons these larva.
but im thinking of now making a soldier fly larva farm for the dragons (outside!) using your ideas, my mealworm farm is for my gecko, this would be great to have so now i know how to care for them what they like etc, how good they are, and not to worry no matter how gross LOL. but thank you for this video. this is super helpful!! my dragons one day will thank you. oh and not to mention the lack of house flies we've had lately , it explains everything! tho we have a few large house flies but NO where as bad as it use to be,
Soldier flies always grew naturally in our outhouse hole.
Thanks for your program. I always watch your program
The best soldier fly content. Wow. Thank you!!!! It is fun to watch the climb & then the funnel drop! Lol
if you put a resistance flap at the end of the bottle it may help more to disperse a larger number of them as to not get one chicken to hoard the pipe outlet. basically a flap with an adjustable spring, so when a weight threshold is reached it can't hold the flap up any more and dumps the "mass" of larvy instead of letting them fall one at a time. thou you may need to experiment to see what material the flap /spring assembly should be made of, idk what seasonal restraints may be in play/moisture/ temp etc... they'd all affect some of the parameters. hmmm i wonder if you could keep a biodome sort of add on that would be heated as to allow for full year round production of the bot flies??? maybe a little greenhouse?
Some farmers put piles of compost in the chicken run for the chickens to scratch and eat the worms, bugs, and larvae etc....Joe Salatin, and Justin Rodhes.
Wonderful video! Really well done. Thank you for putting this together. I'm looking forward to getting started!
Wow, man this is so cool. Thank you so much for posting. I intend setting up my own BSF harvester to aid chicken feed as well as aquaponics in the near future. Thumbs up
Sweet! Aquaponics was the original reason I started researching BSF years ago. They have such potential as an animal feed! Best of luck.
So exciting! I am looking at setting something up to dispose of all of our waste offal from processing chickens
How do you think an established population would go on a diet of pure meat?
I think that definitely possible but I don't know 100%
I am curious if rabbit poo would provide a good food source for the solder fly?
can you incorporate worms with the BSF --- BSF can dine on the fresh and worms on the waste ?
I'd really love to see if/how you manage to maintain the population thru the winter. That's my current barrier.
thanks for the vid!
I want to try and figure that out as well. My first idea is to use seedling heat mats to provide the extra heat to keep them going. But I'm worried doing it outdoors won't be possible because the flies don't stick around in the cold air. I think growing them indoors might be the only option for year round production.
You're just gonna have to get that greenhouse up and going huh? Greenhouse, compost inside to heat the greenhouse, BSF, and chickens scratching and turning your compost! Recipe for success!!
Orrrrrr an epic fail..... lol!!
Love this video, getting chickens this summer and I’m going to use some of your techniques. Thank you 🙏🏼
So the bottom plastic bin is so they live to fly status and reproduce since the top bid becomes food to the chickens. Right? Could you just do the top bin and let them reproduce faster or would you get too many too quick? Good video. Thanks
I think the eye moustaches are a nice touch.
Instead of a steel mesh, what about using window screen mesh (fiberglass)? It won’t rust. Alternatively, use gutter or vent mesh (plastic, larger openings). Are you using steel because they can chew through plastic?
Thanks for the suggestion. I thought about window screen but I thought it was made from some unsafe plastic or something I didn't know it was fiberglass. I think that's a great option I'll experiment with both to see how water and particulate filter through it. I was just using parts I readily had available. I was putting this together at a time I was really busy with other things so I didn't fully think everything out. It needs to be redesigned a bit for next year.
Hi! Love your videos! They are very informative. I have a question regarding this build- does it smell, putting all those table scraps in the bin?
This is amazing on so many levels
yea, Amazing eyebrows, or shall we say Eyestaches.
15:18 those were certainly housefly. check for 2 "bum spots". housefly larvae have em' but BSF larvae don't
Does it need to be a ramp??? What if you had a telescoping funnel you could just adjust to the food waste height.
Wow, thankyou for your awesome video. Anw i want to ask, how many times that you give all of the larvaes food in two weeks until its growup into pupae? 2x/day or what? And please tell us, what kind of food that you give to the larvaes in detail? I really excited for trying my own. Thanks.
When I create my BSFL bin, I'm going to look to avoid urea and formaldehyde glued woods and, if I use plastics, use BPA free and a plastic type that doesn't shed microplastics. My research continues. Thoughts? Thanks
I bought a Biopod some years ago. It is stinking and I want to get rid of the burlap I bought this spring that lays on top of larva. Wondering if wet newspaper would be okay instead. Live in SW Idaho where it is dry and hot now. Do you think moist newspaper would be okay? I have them crawling out into collection bucket prematurely as well. Mostly feeding them dry cat food that my cat refuses to eat and snails I collect off my hostas.
wonderful video , exhaustive knowledge provided, wishing i could have that option in India in near future
BSF's are most active at night, and chickens are not. they are looking for a place to dig in and wait for the next cycle. Dumping them into the chicken coop will feed your chickens in the day time, but at night they will crawl away and you will lose a lot of them. It would benefit your chickens more to have them drop into a container that you feed to the chickens in the daytime. Besides, when you feed the chickens, it's more entertaining for you and gets your chickens to trust you..
Hi I live in San diego and was wondering if I could come tour your farm. I love your innovation and would love to see your place in person.
Great video with focus problems and all, thanks so much.
Dehydrate the pupae in a heated dehydrator. This makes them easy to store in a sealed baggie or bowl on the shelf, no freezing required!
Love those eyebrows! It's your trademark! It helped me find you again after not seeing your videos for a while. Love your videos!
Great job explaining. Hey you aren't fake . You did a Great job. I learned. And do they leave castings in the box like earthworms? Plesse let me know
Interesting and informative video, bud.
Thank you from South Africa!
so if I live in the tropics I don't need to order them to start? And will the maggot bucket design work with this as well so I can just hang it in the coop and they eventually fall out the bottom and get gobbled up by the chickens and I don't have to handle them so much??? Also I live in an urban area with neighbors and businesses around. Can the bins be close like in a zone 1 or should it be more in a zone 3 etc. further or furthest from the house?
I would try to attract them naturally first before buying. It can be a bit further it stinks a bit when starting out the bin, zone 2 or 3.
Curious how those oats worked for you. I tried that as a bedding and the water caused it to turned into a solid block and trapped alot of my larvea.
Since they like soaked grain, would feeding them spent grains from beer making work?
Would this work in a cold climate year round? If not, have any tips for that?
Would you still recommend your design/strategies or have you since changed the way you would do things?