Harvesting SHB Larvae with BSFL.....For my daughter's chooks!

I’m letting my slumgum get infested with shb in my bsfl bin so that I can harvest all the shb larvae & eventually use what’s leftover as compost. It is amazing how many beetle larvae will grow out of slumgum.

I bet the chooks love them

Hi Dee, apparently they love the bsfl. I couldn’t get the butcher bird remotely interested in them. The magpie reluctantly ate a couple, however our white faced heron frequent visitor seems to like them. Would you believe that they are growing bsfl to make bio fuel. About 30% can be turned into bio fuel & the rest can be turned into animal food.

They are looking to burrow into the ground. I would stick with wax moth larvae for chickens… they are going to pupate in the ground…

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My apologies, I meant to include my video (a major seniors moment). In the video, you’ll see how all the larvae gets frozen.


cheers

PS go to full screen at the 2 minute mark to get a better view of the SHB larvae exiting the bin.

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SHB pupae in the ground. Harvesting them for chooks is allowing the larvae to get to ground. Many will escape the chooks and pupate. You are helping spread the SHB. Please breed meal worms or similar in your compost instead.

Interestingly though, SHB do seem attracted to fruity compost heaps.

I see you freeze them before they go to the chooks.

Do you find an increased problem with SHB as a result of the escaping larvae?

Or do the SHB prefer the slumgum compost to the hives?

Hi Craig, my strategy is in my video. The way I have it set up is the SHB larvae can’t make it to ground because I only have one exit they can use & then into the bin that they can’t escape from. You need to watch my video.

The SHB like the slumgum nearly as much as they like hives.

I made this video during the winter, since then the BSFL are more active in the bin & they must be eating all the SHB eggs/larvae as they go because all I’m getting now is BSFL, which the chooks also love.