Any such thing as too many black soldier fly larvae

[TaylorGlade]

Free range is fantastic if you can manage it, but it is not always realistic. I elected for a large, covered yard over free-ranging. I have a very heavy predator load -- weasels, bobcats, fox, coyote, lots hawks, you name it. The areas which would be most attractive to the chickens, my vegetable garden and compost bins, are relatively exposed and would make for easy pickings. Every once in a while my nearest neighbor runs the free-range experiment and each time, all her chickens are killed in a matter of weeks.

I'm always trying to improve the quality of their yard. I dump in weeds from the garden, grass clippings, old logs, fall leaves, etc. When I first started, the chicken yard was built on a bull dozed piece of land that was absolutely barren. Now, at least during the rainy months of year it provides a decent space for them. Although, TBH, it does not provide a lot food, it does attract lizards, frogs, mice and insects, all of which I've seen my chickens eat. They also eat mallow leaves, lambs quarter, etc. while it is in season.

View attachment 3623598

That's such a lush run!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Honestly, I'm a bit jealous of that run. Dog fennel is taking over a lot of mine - only cure is mechanical removal. The goats eat the tops, but being goats, leave the rest to a height of about 6", then ignore it till its 12-15" high. Enough to block out most other growing things.

Ain't nothing wrong with a field that doesn't produce much but attracts lizard, frogs, and bugs. We call that "fishing".

 

[Morrigan]

Honestly, I'm a bit jealous of that run.

It's not like that all year. We don't get rain in the summer here, so by June it's starting to die, and by August it looks like this. The only reason anything is left green, is that I wash out the waterers in the same couple of spots to create a little moisture and some dust bathing areas. There's also some invasive thistle in the yard that is so spiny that the chickens won't go near it. I have to dig out several of those each spring. I'm ready for fall, and I can start toting in bags of leaves for them to dig through.

 

[NameIwish]

I know that chickens are not supposed to eat more than 10% of their diet in treats.

Folks, they're chickens! They eat what they will from whatever's on the menu. I feed mine cracked corn - cause its cheapest thing I can find. (OK, some scratch from time to time or just mixed in with the corn and I go for the crumbles when I've a handful of chicks to feed.)

My birds Free-Range all day long and can be found at the neighbors' place pecking at whatever as they mosey about throughout the day - no doubt, finding 'treats' and sustenance as they go.

In the coop, chicken wire keeps the hens in place - but allows the bugs too many exits. Consider adding window screening for the top half of the coop to give your hens an advantage in their never ending attempt to eat all flying insects.

If your birds are not allowed to roam the yard at will, consider tossing some lawn clippings in the coop - the salad they'd enjoy were you not so much a jailer. Handfuls of the stuff - likely to include a bug or two - from which they will select the best bits and scatter the rest to dry and serve as litter.

Get a good strainer for your kitchen sink and an old plastic coffee 'can' or two in which to collect the discarded bits of lettuce, onion, & tomato, from your efforts to make your salads. When making an omelet or 'two over easy,' don't waste the shells - put 'em in the can. Collecting such meal prep detritus will serve your fowl as well as any grossly over-priced 'store bought' supplements or 'treats,' while recycling naturally and putting mo money in your pockets.

Now, that's a treat!

 

[TaylorGlade]

Folks, they're chickens! They eat what they will from whatever's on the menu. I feed mine cracked corn - cause its cheapest thing I can find. (OK, some scratch from time to time or just mixed in with the corn and I go for the crumbles when I've a handful of chicks to feed.)

My birds Free-Range all day long and can be found at the neighbors' place pecking at whatever as they mosey about throughout the day - no doubt, finding 'treats' and sustenance as they go.

In the coop, chicken wire keeps the hens in place - but allows the bugs too many exits. Consider adding window screening for the top half of the coop to give your hens an advantage in their never ending attempt to eat all flying insects.

If your birds are not allowed to roam the yard at will, consider tossing some lawn clippings in the coop - the salad they'd enjoy were you not so much a jailer. Handfuls of the stuff - likely to include a bug or two - from which they will select the best bits and scatter the rest to dry and serve as litter.

Get a good strainer for your kitchen sink and an old plastic coffee 'can' or two in which to collect the discarded bits of lettuce, onion, & tomato, from your efforts to make your salads. When making an omelet or 'two over easy,' don't waste the shells - put 'em in the can. Collecting such meal prep detritus will serve your fowl as well as any grossly over-priced 'store bought' supplements or 'treats,' while recycling naturally and putting mo money in your pockets.

Now, that's a treat!

I do save food scraps and do all the other things mentioned. We were thinking of starting a soldier fly or meal worm farm, hence the reason for my question. I try to save money on food where possible, but these chickens make for food for us. Chickens with a good diet make better quality eggs with better nutritional content. So I want to make sure ours has the best nutritional profile available since we have to be "jailers.". Our neighbors are probably not as understanding as yours and wouldn't appreciate our chickens in their yard.

 

[HowIsItDone]

Anything you purposely feed your bird is a treat besides the pelleted or crumbled feed.
So yes, kitchen scraps, fruits, vegetables and black soldier fly larva that your purposely feeding is a treat.

Is a question of how much protein vs grain?

This is cute. 3 min. 45sec
Could this work as daily extra protein and Calcium?
(edit to say that I assume these are soldier flies.)
Free range, or no range,..... Both?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Is a question of how much protein vs grain?

This is cute. 3 min. 45sec
Could this work as daily extra protein and Calcium?
(edit to say that I assume these are soldier flies.)
Free range, or no range,..... Both?

No, its a question of balanced nutritional intake.

 

[Huntmaster]

(edit to say that I assume these are soldier flies.)

Look to be just normal fly maggots

 

[FabledFeatherFarm]

IDK, I feel like I may be missing the point.

For hundreds of years, jungle fowl survived eating a scavenged diet.

And recently, many birds survived eating droppings from cattle feed and what they could scrape up.

Was it optimal? Probably not. Did they survive and continue to lay? Yes.

I guess, I do the best by my birds, and keep my eyes open. Birds will self regular calcium by eating oyster shell or not. I think they and I can both work together to make sure they don’t starve or turn into Cornish x’s!!!

Exactly. The FEED INDUSTRY is who does these studies, the results always come back that it’s “dangerous” to feed other things more than the feed industry feed, and nobody bats an eye at the connection.
Here, we raise our chickens on comfrey, mealworms, alfalfa, sunflower seeds, whey, leftover produce, and as little of our neighbor’s grains as we can get by on. Now we’re going to add soldier flies. And do you know what happens? Our chickens pick and choose what they need on any given day. They don’t hear the factory feed producers telling them they’re going to totally die from it.

 

[ChasityK]

Anything not part of a nutritionally complete, balanced diet is a "treat". It doesn't matter how "good" for your chicken it might be in isolation, there is no ingredient on the planet which is nutritionally complete to meeting a chicken's needs. Meaning anything you give is unbalancing. The 10% thing is a useful guideline, nothing more.

BSFL are an interesting ingredient. If you buy them in dried form, with most of the moisture removed, they are a decent protein source with a good amino acid profile, but they are also a HUGE fat source. The benefits of slightly higher protein are dwarfed by the negatives of greatly increased fat. Nutrient dense ingredients like that don't take much to imbalance a bird's diet. OTOH, if you raise them yourself (I've tried, also in the FL Panhandle, it seemed to be too hot in my set up, couldn't sustain a colony), then there's a lot more water in them, making them less nutritionally dense, Meaning an equal weight of them is less imbalancing. Still not great, but can be useful as part of a larger, and more varied, feed management system.

The key is BALANCE. Don't focus on any one thing, that's missing the forest for a single tree. You don't know how to make a nutritionally complete chicken feed - if you did, you wouldn't be asking this question. So don't focus on breaking a nutritionally complete feed by asking how much high expense treat you can offer your chickens. Moderation and variety are the legs upon which balance stands.

To your last question, I free range my birds on many acres. You can see my culling project here. and my work on my free range pasture, here. How do I do it??? First, I offer a nutritionally high quality feed - high in things that are more difficult to find in a typical pasture. Then I limit their feeding. I offer food once a day, and I monitor their consumption, adjusting quantity based on how quickly they eat everything each day, because the value of the pasture varies seasonally. The rest of the day, the chickens graze a diverse pasture of low nutritional density food - they have options, they (largely) self balance. How do I make sure? I look.

I've done a bunch of reading, I understand what I'm doing, and I keep reading. But relying as I am on nature, which all its joys and sorrows, there's a big learn (and keep learning) by doing component to it as well. See my signature - "finding success by learning from failure". I'm continuing to mess with my pasture, ensuring I have a blend of things available for them to eat at all times (which attracts a variety of insects, of course - but I find I don't have as many insects as one might think), and I continue to experiment each year with adding new things to see how they do.

Hope that helps at least a little bit. You don't have to do as I do - and I hope to get better at what I'm doing - so you can certainly do it better. Got to start somewhere, right? Good luck on your chicken keeping journey.

Have you ever tried a colony of worms? Did it give you the amount you needed or did you add with the BSFL for your flock? I'm just curious if you may have experience or advice on the subject.