June 14, 2013

January 3, 2012

For those of you with fish or chickens you may be interested in this project. It will produce fish and chicken food from your food scraps.

This is a Black Soldier Fly Harvester

I need additional sources of protein for the fish in my breeding tanks and for the chickens I plan on getting later in the spring, however I don’t want to purchase food. Instead I’m going to have nature produce their food for me.

Here is how it works:

The Black Soldier Fly lays eggs in compost bins because their larva love to eat decaying food. In a BSF Harvester, as the larva mature they look for higher ground and begin circling the bucket looking for a way out. At this point they will enter the funnel and climb up the clear tubing until they fall out the other end into a small container of sawdust. They self-harvest themselves!

You can then feed the larva directly to your fish/chickens or freeze them to be used at a later date.

Black Soldier Fly vs Redworms:
Worms produce great compost and vermicastings so it is still great to have them around, however worms don’t process citrus fruits, dairy products, or meats. The Black Soldier Fly will consume all of these materials. Worms also do not reproduce as fast as the larva, so they wouldn’t be as ideal to feed to your fish and chickens

If you’d like additional information I got the plans from http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/

I added about 15 Phoenix Worms into the trap that I had built several months ago (Unfortunately I had been unsuccessful at baiting them in from the wild so I ordered some from an online retailer instead).
The rest of the worms (approx. 85) I dispersed in 3 mounds across the compost pile.

In summary the food scraps from my kitchen will be consumed by the Black Soldier Flies which in turn will be eaten by my fish and chickens, which will then return full circle to my kitchen table. Completely closed loop system. Pretty awesome stuff!

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