Why Black Soldier Flies Make the Best Chicken Feed
Having chickens is one of the best steps you can make toward a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. Once you have a coop full of happy, egg-laying hens, you are officially sourcing a good portion of your own (and chances are, some of your neighbors’) food.
But what about the food you feed your chickens? Chicken feed may be cheap, but that doesn’t mean it’s sustainable. Producing a pound of eggs consumes roughly 1,484 liters of water, because of how high consumption normal chicken feed is.
The solution is to switch to a homemade chicken feed, like black soldier fly larvae (BSFL). If you’re new to black soldier flies, this is the perfect intro. In this article, we’ll talk about all the benefits of BSFL, for your chickens and the environment.
What Chickens Need
Chickens are opportunistic omnivores. In a wild(ish) environment, they will eat bugs, grains, fruits and vegetables, and even small animals. They also peck at the soil to get at the small, abrasive grains in it, which they store in their gizzards to help them “chew” their food.
In general, chickens need a varied diet of protein, calcium, grains, and vitamins and minerals. The normal method of filling all these buckets is to buy crumbles. Crumbles are a highly processed mix of grains and nutrients that is designed to fulfill your chickens’ needs. Some people will also use dried mealworms or other insects, which are more natural, but don’t always give your chickens everything they need.
The Real Cost of Eggs
Crumbles are pretty cheap. You will typically go through about $15 per month worth of feed using crumbles. But they are very wasteful to produce, consuming copious amounts of water and labor. It’s good to have a cheap, easy option on hand for your chickens, of course.
But you know what’s better than cheap? Free. That’s why we’re so crazy about black soldier flies.
What are Black Soldier Flies?
The black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens, is a species of black fly distantly related to the common houseflies you see around your home. The crucial difference is that black soldier flies are human allies. They don’t spread disease or bite, and they can actually outcompete your local houseflies and other insects.
Black Soldier Fly Biology
For all intents and purposes, we’re mostly interested in the black soldier fly’s larval stage. BSFL will spend most of their lives as grubs, eating just about anything and everything. They are drawn to warm, moist conditions, like you might find in a compost bin.
At this stage, one of the most important things to know is that they are highly omnivorous, and will eat almost anything. That includes meat, citrus, and dairy, three things you normally can’t compost.
It also includes animal waste. Their digestive systems are so highly efficient that they can turn animal droppings into safe, nutritious feed (although this method of feeding them will lower their nutritional content).
Black Soldier Fly Nutritional Content
The nutritional content of black soldier fly larvae changes depending on what you feed them. Given a steady diet of healthy vegetable matter, BSFL contain roughly 50% protein and 35% fat, with a high content of amino acids (similar to fish meal).
They also contain about 5% calcium, which is on the high end for insect protein. Chicken owners have noted that the high calcium in BSFL improves their hens’ egg production. They also have a solid content of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids. They have a higher calcium content than mealworms or other dried insects that are sold as feed, and higher amino content than crumbles.
On the low end, when BSFL are fed animal waste, their protein content may be closer to 25 or 30%. Expect similar drops in fat, vitamin, and mineral content.
FDA Approval
In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration approved BSFL as suitable feed for animals like poultry. This is mostly because of their highly efficient digestive systems. As we mentioned, the black soldier fly is incredibly good at disinfecting and purifying food and carries very little disease compared to other insects. As of today, they are the only FDA-approved insect feed for animals.
Why Black Soldier Flies are More Sustainable
So, we’ve covered how black soldier flies are just as good as crumbles or dried mealworms, but how are they more sustainable? The answer is- because you can produce them at home for free. The larvae eat compost from your kitchen (or animal waste), consume no additional water, and produce a sustainable flow of animal feed, as long as you need them.
We’re not going to get into the particulars of producing black soldier flies in this article, mostly because there are other, more complete how-tos available. But the basic idea is to build a specialized compost bin where your BSFL will live as larvae. You can toss just about anything into that bin- kitchen scraps, meat, citrus, dairy, and even waste from your animals. If you’re going to use animal waste, we recommend also using fresh kitchen scraps to keep the larvae’s nutritional content up.
Then, when the flies reach a certain stage in their development, they will naturally try to find a cooler, drier place to be. Your black soldier fly compost bin will contain a ramp that leads outside the bin and into a bucket, where you can collect the larvae for feed.
That’s it. Once you have a compost bin set up, you can produce chicken feed using just about any organic matter you have. It’s cheaper than crumbles, and uses no additional water or resources other than the “waste” products you feed them.
Circular Agriculture
This is a loose example of what is commonly called “circular agriculture” in the sustainability field. Circular agriculture is the golden standard for sustainability; it means creating a closed system where the waste from one product is turned into fuel to produce more of it. In our example, almost nothing is required to keep the cycle going. Your BSFL eat waste, to produce feed for animals that produce more waste.
It’s the greenest way you can produce food, with the happy bonus of also being the cheapest!