I think we may have found a partial solution to our goal of feeding our chickens without storebought ingredients.  Black soldier fly larvae can be grown in worm-bin-like containers, decomposing food scraps.  The best part is that when the larvae reach full size, they naturally crawl out of the container and fall into a bucket on the side.  You can just remove the collection bucket once a day and feed the high protein larvae directly to your chickens.

This article by Harvey Ussery has all of the information you need.  He uses a pre-made container that costs $179, but I strongly suspect we can build something just as effective on our own for pennies.  Unfortunately, this project will have to wait until spring since black soldier flies are dormant in cold weather.  I can barely wait!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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