Grub Composting

My friend Daryl over at Ape99.org helped me set up a Black Soldier Fly Grub Composter in the chicken pen yesterday.  I’ve been wanting to try this forever so I was very excited to get his help, (and starter larvae!!).  We propped two 55 gallon food storage barrels in the chicken run and fed them with wood chips and ripe veggie scraps.  We covered the main opening with chicken wire to keep the hens out and placed a tray under the barrel opening to catch the self-harvesting grubs.   I’m just learning about Soldier Flies, but it appears there is no down side with these critters. The adult female fly (non-biting, non-stinging, non-disease carrying) lays her eggs near the food source where the larvae hatch and begin their voracious feeding. They reduce the food scraps by 95% in a matter of days, including meat scraps, bone, etc… When that stage of their life is complete, they quit eating and crawl out of the food source. In this application, these highly nutritious little guys will have very interested chickens waiting right outside the barrel for them! The idea is win-win-win: Compost EVEN your meat scraps, make your chickens soooo happy, and reduce the amount of purchased chicken feed. I will be documenting all this, of course, so I”ll let you know if this little experiment pans out. I just love a plan.