Awesome video! Daniel makes a very good point, BSF is much better for small scale farms with less than 100 chickens. For anybody interested in black soldier fly production, here are a few tips to reduce the labor In the video, Daniel shows a black soldier fly production setup with nets. The method with nets is very labor intensive because you must keep each life cycle of the soldier fly separated and move everything around at specific times... This way you produce large amounts of BSF in batches. Good for selling... but lots of labor. If you are producing BSF to feed your own animals, then there are less labor-intensive methods you can use. There is a method to produce black soldier fly passively aside from acquiring the food waste. You can even automate the feeding of the chickens. The labor consists of acquiring fruit tree waste such as mangos, and putting this waste in a special-shaped container close to the chickens who will eat the BSF. In this method, BSF is produced constantly instead of in batches. The BSF grows inside the container, and as it matures it will naturally crawl out of the container. At this point it can "crawl" to an area accessible by chickens, who will eat the soldier fly. The container will naturally maintain a colony of BSF because BSF eat other maggots and most competing organisms. But why does the BSF crawl out of the container? It is all about the shape of the container. The container has a ramp on the inside which starts at the bottom and goes all the way to the top, where there is a hole for the BSF to fall out of the container. The BSF likes to eat where the rotten liquid is at the bottom of the food waste pile. When they become mature, they crawl up high. By putting a ramp in their container, you enable them to come out of the container naturally when they are ready to pupate. The result is a container or a hole that passively produces and deposits chicken food, provided you keep the food waste stocked. You can either buy a big plastic tub or dig a hole. Each hole or container should be anywhere from 3'x3'x3x' to 5'x5'x5'. If you dig a hole you will need to line the hole with cement to force the BSF to crawl out. If you just dig a hole, you will lose many BSF into the dirt. This method is much easier to scale, because you do not need to keep each BSF life cycle separate, and there is no labor to feed the chickens because you can create short pipes that deposit the BSF where the chickens can eat it. The labor required is the maintenance and food waste supply. Fruit trees are ideal. BSF absolutely loves mango and you can create a population of BSF in the tropics by cutting up 10 mangos in a container with a few holes in the top and letting it rot. The BSF will naturally find the mango if they are local in your area. (They are local almost everywhere).
But then you won’t be sure the total feed protein source percentage is adequate. Or that the BSF are as high in protein as required based on this waste (I guess regularly sampling them could give a reasonable estimate). I think the calculation of protein ratios from the BSF and making it consistent through the year to ensure proper feed macronutrient ratios for 90% egg production is the largest obstacle 🤔
@@samauthor342 Its totally possible, the problem is that people try to start systems with 100+ birds... you have to create a sustainable system with a small group of birds, maybe 5-10, then you build up your system and automate it and make it more scalable... The problem with the western approach is that it is too hands-on... we can create natural systems using insects, plants, and the physical shapes of soil... but we must take time to study this way of thinking because it is not the same as the western ways of controlling every single variable... There are better options...
@@JackPitmanNica thrre are some systems here in the west that are very natural. No measuring involved. Usually it involves compost piles and other animals. Seems to work wonderfully for bird and egg production.
When we had chickens on our farm, I used to allow them to free range wander during the day then only feed in the evening. They had access to a couple of dams for water and 25 acres of woodland to forage.The swarm of chickens would flock to my call to feed and then be protected during the nights. We had fat, happy chickens. I see that your farm has rich fertile soil too which i s an advantage to growing your own feed.
My good friend. I remember when you use to do it 2years ago. Your dedication on the farm made me to buy lands for farming. I have followed you for years now. Keep the good work
@@nickovdub6131 0 context on their situation and that's the kind of comment you make? I guess the farmers whose produce you buy from the store should sell their land also? lol
Excellent video! Beautiful flock and well done on your explanations. Only thing I have to add, careful with the antibiotics. Doxicyclin is an antibiotic we use as humans and you don’t want to breed resistant strains within your flock that could jump species. Your camera presence is great and the flow through the video was awesome
Hi Dr. Daniel, i have read through quite a number of comments here and my submission would be, Since your farm has expanded beyond what it used to be, you should out source the supply of larvae to another farmer who will be willing to supply you with the needed quantity for your bird. its either you focus on the chicken for now, because they both need a lot of attentions (Chicken and BSF) at the same time. I support those that said your title was not properly coined too, this could scare people. i wish you the best bro...let us unluck the best of us. Am Dennis Chidi - Nigeria
good Idea sir I was considering a similar plan teaching people in especially rural areas to produce insects for poultry farmers protein sources for birds gets very pricey here in Ghana too
I saw this channel for the first time now and I liked you from the first 2 minutes. And by the end, I was in love with the content. Great work. Im glad someone is finally educating these hipster city boys from the west on how a farm actually looks like.
I've fed soldier fly larva that were dried, not live. Many people here (california, USA) raise mealworms for their birds, but as you say; it depends how much space it takes, and what the percentage of protein is. We've cut grass, weeds, stalks, garden trimmings and vegetable waste with ground dried eggshells. Yes, we searched through a lot of local possible resources, and they ended up getting an interesting mix. For a year, I also worked helping a caterer and came home frequently with leftover banquet food. LOL Things you and I couldn't afford in a restaurant....they ate like queens for a time! (It was "legally unsafe for human consumption" and we were only given it to give to our chickens.) NICE eggs, and YES I heard the "I laid an egg" song! hahaha I love hearing your girls! I've had chickens over the years, rarely more than 40. Thank you for sharing, it's a problem everyone caring for chickens faces! We can't afford to BUY all the feed!
Thank you for excellent information. I am in USA. I am just beginning again to raise BSF. I will be keeping my chickens in raised housing so that their droppings fall to the ground where the black soldier flies can populate, grow, lay eggs and be gathered to feed to the chickens. I do not keep more than 100 or so chickens and this works well. It would be, as you said, quite labor intensive to raise so many tons of BSF for the chickens but it might be a wonderful side business for you as well. I have seen it done on a very large scale. People here who keep a few chickens buy dried BSF larvae in small bags for more than we pay for a 50 pound bag of chicken feed - this amazes me and makes me want to begin this business for myself. To raise and sell the larvae AND the compost made by the larvae is highly profitable here. Thank you again for your video. We wish you all the best and look forward to hearing more from you.
Greetings Doc, why couldn’t your title read “Why I’ve Stopped My BSF Production?” Your title makes it seem as if the BSF are resulting in diseases or low conversion rate?
@@margaretgathoni2281 I have tried to harvest maggots for my baby chicks before. They were OK for a week or so, but noticed few healthy chicks died of indigestion.
@@margaretgathoni2281 but why did you go for house flies when what is recommended is BSF. These do not carry any pathogens. House flies are vectors of diseases.
I think hiring 8-10 people a month to process all the waste is cheaper than buying soya. He fed the maggot with cow dung which is impractical. He should just asks for rotten veggies and fruit from merchant in markets. It worked really well here in Indonesia. Though it's true since it's labor intensive, most farmer that fed their chicken with bsf maggot always ended up making a factory for the bsf maggot itself. It uses a lot of space and workers.
There's is another option for feed : Use the poultry as post harvest tillage. You calculate a poultry/m² ratio. Then let them out in the targeted parcel with a gate and security so they don't go where they're not needed and safe from predators. Let them pasture, daytime only, usually 1/2 days is optimal. They'll eat the harvest leftovers, unwanted seeds, pests, bugs and so on. Their claws provide for light tillage which build soil, in addition to their 💩. Fresh air, is good for them, minimizes stress which provide healthier eggs and meat. You save on pesticides and fertilizers to an extent, you get tillage that build soil instead of destroying.
Yeah it is true, that the cost of maize is very expensive. Currently, I'm doing a research project on the effects of dilution of dietary energy at a constant energy-to-protein ratio on feed conversion and carcass characteristic in broiler chicken. The results of this experiment be very very interesting to see how if reduction of the amount of dietary energy will have any impact on growth performance and what will be the economic efficiency of the different dietary treatments that I'm going to use. The project with be through before August 2023
The Ammonia produced by the chicken excrement is a serious issue when it comes to the health of the chickens .. Which means constant cleaning of the coup .. One of the other measures to lower the Ammonia is to add airflow through the coup from the floor to the top of the coup .. The airflow doesn't need to be high but it does need to be done .. Many farmers have movable coups which tractors can pull from one place to another to reduce the ammonia which requires flat ground .. This is another good method to help the chickens breath fresh air ..
Try getting into aquaponics systems where you can raise crops and fish at the same time so that you can raise minnows for your chickens to eat. Now if you design the system well it can be mostly automated and in the process you will be growing food that you can eat and sell, and raise fish of your choice. Anyway it's just something that might help cut down the cost of feeding the chickens, your family, and possibly bring in an extra source of income.
If you have a source for food scraps from restaurants, you can build a solar cooker to heat and disinfect the meat. (Directions on internet) Then let the food cool and give it to the chickens. Pretty soon it will attract insects. If you have a local beer brewery, you can feed them leftover malt and hops. But this feed situation is a nightmare. I'm going to start grinding mesquite pods. There are probably native plants in your area with roots or seeds you can grind up. Acorns are good, but its a multi-step process
Interesting to hear your challenges with BSFL. When I started farming them I faced many challenges but I can tell you now I produce about 100kg a day without much effort and with no-one helping me at all. I have sourced plenty of organic feed for them each day (all free) and I have tweaked my farm setup so it works with minimum effort. I will be using them to supplement the feed in my new chicken farm this year.
@@michaeljarvis8377 it's about 50/50 between self harvesting pre-pupae that crawl out of the bioponds up the slopes into collection channels and using a sieving machine (tumbler) to separate 16-17 DoL from the frass. I prefer to use a mix a of Instar 5 and Pre-Pupae
BSF is really just a composting technique that happens to create supplemental protein. Set up worm bins with bsf on top. You can trade the resulting vermicompost to your feed farmers. One of the best ways to take care of your chicken litter.
blend( electric blender machine ) some watermelon and cucumber together and then mix in some dried green algae powder till it becomes like a dough. they love it. And last a while in the freezer. But! for as many chickens as you have.. its just a treat for your favourite few :)
If you live near a creek set a minnow trap. Fresh minnows are very good for chickens and they love them. They will go nuts as those minnows flop around. BSF is actually a better source of calcium than protein. And they should also be less than 5% of your chickens diet. Literally less than 1/2 of an ounce when their daily consumption of approximately 4 to 6 ounces.
Maize prices in Nigeria quadrupled during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and have not gone down since. Now I farm my own maize, but we have a challenge with herdsmen.
Have you tried madre de agua? It's starting to be a popular feed here in Southeast Asia as poultry, cattle and fish feed. You don't need a lot of water or dig any pond. You can even grow it as fence or boundary tree. Edit: you can even process it with soya cake into animal feed pellets for long term storage. It may help mitigate the high cost of feed as a cheap filler that is also high in protein and beneficial for animal health.
@@temitopeolayode8962 No unique to english name, but a lot of names- madre de agua and palo de agua are the ones i've seen most often. Scientific name is Trichanthera gigantea.
Great video. I love your farm! If the tops of the roosting boxes are spiky, the chickens will not roost on top of them and make them poopy. Look for pigeon or chicken spikes. You can get them in metal or plastic.
That's crazy. It got so expensive for maze. Would it have helped to grow your own maze? Wild situation, I know that a lot of a chickens diet is going to require some grain and protein from grazing on bugs. You've got so many beautiful healthy chickens, place is so clean there can't be anything other than the feed effecting them so. Thank you for sharing.
I put lots of piles of sticks and grass and lots of slaters and other wood insects grow up in the piles of sticks and grass. We in New Zealand like to have a few chickens at home.
Try meal worm, made with corn or porridge Look into it I created worm bins, with leftover waste Not only did chickens get worms, but it biodegrades the kitchen waste fast, eventually you are left with amazing topsoil
Hi Dr ... Soya doc + BSF by adding and giving your birds both at the same time. Right .that means you are not balancing the protein source. Due to the imbalance the birds are having the loose poohs. Regarding the raising of BSF, you have given us a good indication that it's not feasible for a chicken farmer to farm BSF alternatively. Due to the reasons you have given.
If you put ramps, that lead to fall offs into buckets, you can get the Soldier flies to collect themselves, This is usually how folks harvest black soldier flies, as when they are ready, they stop eating, and collect into the buckets by climbing out of the food. Just have to look up designs, and make a large enough system with plenty of ways for them to isolate into the buckets, and you could just throw waste into a bin, and collect them each day easy.
" when they are ready, they stop eating, and collect into the buckets by climbing out of the food. " have you got any video or another material explaining this method?
I use the same amount of food as you do for not only chickens ducks and turkeys. Feeding soldier fly is only a treat i give them once a week. Any more it is not worth it. Right now we are 60% maze due to below zero temps. You are a very smart chicken raiser.
How much daylight do you have ? Idk if you are aware but laying hens need 14 hrs of daylight to lay eggs, also depending on the breed the egg laying production will drop a little bit after 2 years. If you are not getting 14 hrs of daylight you can use light bulbs to supplement, however it's a tradeoff because hens laying eggs all year round will require more nutrients, as it takes more out of them. External parasites like mites and lice can cause a drastic drop in egg production too and lead to internal illnesses. im not sure where you live at but arround looks pretty green with many different kinds of plants, there is probably a native plant arround you that you can use in chicken feed. The good thing about chickens is they can and will eat just about anything. Much love ❤️ 🙏
From the day you mentioned using fly larvae I knew it was not practical. I am a feedmilling engineer that worked in mills poducing more than 20 tons per hour, a quick calculation and I knew.
Idk if Madre de agua available in your area but I feel like Lantana, Vanderblomst, Yellow Sage, Red Sage and Shrub Verena might be. Those are flowers that chicken eat as well and full of nutrients.
Have you tried duckweed? It has very good protein content. It's ability to regenerate fast makes it possible to be used in a big farm like yours. It's mostly used in aquaculture as a supplement feed for Tilapia fish. Duckweed is also useful for water filtration. You simply put chicken manure in a water tank or pond and most often duckweed will do very well with good sunlight.
@@ashleycampbell8767 yeah azolla's higher than duckweed. It works well for me because i have fish and it's a basically free byproduct, but if i didn't have fish it would not make sense.
I'm not sure how you feel about alcohol, but the leftover brewer's yeast at the bottom of a batch from beer-brewing is very high in protein with some sugars, and makes excellent chicken feed. It's also very high in vitamin B and will help the chickens' immune systems after a batch of antibiotics because of the probiotic qualities of the yeast. If you leave the yeast out to dry for a day or so it will remove any remnant alcohol from it. Similarly if you have solar panels for electricity, you can convert a solar panel into an algae farm and then strain off the algae for your birds through standard coffee filters. It's similarly nutritious for chickens. This method does not produce alcohol, and other than the chemicals for your water supply it is basically free food to help supplement. Cody's Lab has a video on doing this if you look up "Cody's Algae Panel."
Thanks so much,u doing a great job, but do we feed them,is it by mixing it with d feed or just like that, and also can we mix cassava peal with to feed to feed d chicken or is it good to feed d chicken with cassava peal only
It makes me so happy to see "real" chickens, and not the poor ones bred here in the United States, that are so overweight they just lay around all day, and die of heart attacks a lot.
I known someone he has many restaurant then the waste from his restaurants was the food source for his BSF Farm. He also have a house & automatic springler for the moist. Then everyday he can get 35KG on larvae. So true in large scale it will took proper planning for it to be sustainable. 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Have you considered feeding them dry mealworms? It's very cheap in bulk, and contains around 50% protein by weight... They are also very easy to raise in large quantities, but then you also need grain and vegetable scraps to feed them... You can also add in reject eggs, cooked. Cooked eggs are about 90% protein by weight.
Im very stuck desperately need your help , how do you mix pig feed with BSF . A simple ration. Can i simply mix maize+Bsf+Limestone would that be enough just those 3 ingredients?
BSF are also able to compost chicken poop as they do not completely digest their feed leaving 30% available for re-composters. When I had chickens , hubby made a concrete -casket' system with ramps which the collected poops were fed into. Realize scale up is problematic but for smaller flocks (under 50) worked well. Very healthy, they loved the BSF and produced well. Just a thought. Recompiling their poop plus other waste is a good system. Hope that this helps.
let many of the plants go to seed for continuous supply of seeds for next year's food supply for your chickens. The barley seed may only take you one or two bags to start out with one season, but letting several fodder trays go all the way into maturity to have your own seed growing source year after year. same with all you grow in your garden as food supply for you and your chickens to eat. you can make sorghum syrup from the Sorghum stalks, make a hot grain cereal to eat from the heads, the leaves can be shredded up as silage and stored for up to a year as food for animals, chickens etc. Amaranth, same thing you can make the seeds into a flour and make flat bread or tortillas, fill with cooked meat, vegetables tacos/burritos.
I found your channel today. I watched your vlog and I am impressed by your presentation and your practical knowledge. Now I just subscribed and looking forward for more of your videos
You could still "use" the fly larvae to "process" organic waste if you don't want to make compost out of the waste. Feed the larvae as supplimentary food to the chickens or sell the larvae.
Great video. On the communal laying boxes just add a skinny beam and put a steeper angle roof top on the laying house. A thin sheet of steel works well.
The easiest way to get maggots for chickens is directly from the source. Rotational grazing of cattle is a great way to improve soil health and therefore fodder yields. Then 3 days after the cattle have gone through a patch, follow through with your chickens. They’ll go to town eating the maggots that have hatched in the dung. Furthermore, the chickens will also be eating other bugs like beetles, worms and ants. Further diversifying their feedstock and improving the health and vitality of the chickens.
I do this very thing only with goats & sheep, rotational graze with the chickens being 2-3 days behind the herd. This way they get a varied diet with a good mix of insects and field mice.
@@leehiller2489 I’ve been told that goats and cattle are a great combination too. Due in part to the fact that as the goats go through, they’ll happily munch on weeds and shrubs the cattle don’t like, leaving the prime grasses for the cows. Furthermore, each animals digestive tract is perfect for destroying the eggs and larvae of parasites that affect the other.
Yep, they have zero competition for graze as they go after a different diet. I keep sheep for grass and goats for browse. I'd like to have bovine but I'm too small and my pasture couldn't take it so meat sheep it is.
Yeah, i already research on BSF they're not for full replacement fodder, probably good for 10-20% feeds replacement and needs to be cooked a bit to kill the germs. And fresh BSF only contain 8-10% protein, the one mentioned 45% or more is the processed one into dry powder. Unless you can get free or extremely cheap high fiber feeds for BSF to increase feeds conversion rate then it's not worth it, and only be good for supplement snacks.
I suggest to feed chickens small shrimps, Bcus Its protein with shell It can ge grown in small tubs It can be stored for a long time by sun drying Along with seeds and chicken feed, just mix few shrimps, and you will have a healthy strong, and beautiful feathered birds
Giving antibiotics to layers in production. The eggs from medicated birds should not be eaten or sold until at least 10 days after treatment. Are you still selling your eggs? Or is the rule different in Africa.
The maggots of the green and blue bottle fly would be easier to raise, but I don't know how healthy it would be for chickens. There was a guy who raised his own catfish on fly maggots by using rotting kitchen beef scraps. He built some sort of hanging bucket with a bottom that has a pitched bottom so that when the maggots developed and grew and dropped off the beef scraps, the maggots would roll off the pitched wooden bottom and drop right into the water, where the fish would eat them. You didn't need to worry about the fly egg production because just placing the meat outdoors attracted the flies.
how much land do you own? look into growing different varieties of sunflowers, sorghum, amaranth, add in a good calcium source of oyster shells with the seeds, and BSF larvae, and your feed should have plenty of minerals, and protein for keeping the health of the chickens. Put out barley fodder, you can grow in trays on a four- or five-tiered shelf wire rack that can each shelf hold 3 plastic trays of soaked barley grain that will give you 20 lbs. of fodder for your chickens every 7-9 days the trays will grow to about 6-8" in height and sprout all the barley grain at the bottom of the fodder. What few grains that don't sprout the chickens eat as well. No waste. Seek out sources of fruits, like melons, strawberries, blueberries, the chickens will peck of the Rhines and the remaining's can be used to put into compost pile for your garden for adding rich, nutrient compost for next year's planting.
Thank you for your feedback on this research. I was hoping it was practical but alas it is not. That leaves me with the option of planting, buying and storing soya😢
So soldier flies would be a good option for someone with 100 chickens or less? Or what do you think the max # of chickens one person could feed with soldier flies?
Scaling is the word, but in theory you can feed as much chickens with bsf as you want. Results are awesome, tricky at first but amazing if you get the hang of it, do it efficiently. You can get a lot of help/groups. Hope your weather is nice. Cheers
ED Either crab-grass, blue-grass, or bermuda-grass, left to grow as it could; there was a plastic-wrapped-soil-sack while the grass weathered a whole year over-growth, and the grass deposited surprising wealth of seed: even if they're unwelcome plants, they might secretly make food nobody knows about but a small few unhappy trivia buffs. The worst plants are easily toasted seeds.
you might look into making probiotics for your birds. ... lacto bacillus culture fermentation. ferment cultures. then spray on food.... you can use rice wash water to capture the microbes. and use some good quality milk to grow out the lacto bacilluses. then you can use the lacto bacillus to help keep their water clean. help digestion. you can spray it on the ground. the food the water ect. it can help alot...
Just FYI if you put a PVC pipe at a slight upward angle sticking out of the compost box, the fly larvae will self-harvest when they are ready to pupate.
NICE OKRA ! Also your banana plants look big and magical. Is that the burgundy/red-colored Okra? I grew it for the first time last year, in California. Be well
Awesome video! Daniel makes a very good point, BSF is much better for small scale farms with less than 100 chickens. For anybody interested in black soldier fly production, here are a few tips to reduce the labor
In the video, Daniel shows a black soldier fly production setup with nets. The method with nets is very labor intensive because you must keep each life cycle of the soldier fly separated and move everything around at specific times... This way you produce large amounts of BSF in batches. Good for selling... but lots of labor. If you are producing BSF to feed your own animals, then there are less labor-intensive methods you can use.
There is a method to produce black soldier fly passively aside from acquiring the food waste. You can even automate the feeding of the chickens. The labor consists of acquiring fruit tree waste such as mangos, and putting this waste in a special-shaped container close to the chickens who will eat the BSF.
In this method, BSF is produced constantly instead of in batches. The BSF grows inside the container, and as it matures it will naturally crawl out of the container. At this point it can "crawl" to an area accessible by chickens, who will eat the soldier fly. The container will naturally maintain a colony of BSF because BSF eat other maggots and most competing organisms.
But why does the BSF crawl out of the container? It is all about the shape of the container. The container has a ramp on the inside which starts at the bottom and goes all the way to the top, where there is a hole for the BSF to fall out of the container. The BSF likes to eat where the rotten liquid is at the bottom of the food waste pile. When they become mature, they crawl up high.
By putting a ramp in their container, you enable them to come out of the container naturally when they are ready to pupate. The result is a container or a hole that passively produces and deposits chicken food, provided you keep the food waste stocked.
You can either buy a big plastic tub or dig a hole. Each hole or container should be anywhere from 3'x3'x3x' to 5'x5'x5'. If you dig a hole you will need to line the hole with cement to force the BSF to crawl out. If you just dig a hole, you will lose many BSF into the dirt.
This method is much easier to scale, because you do not need to keep each BSF life cycle separate, and there is no labor to feed the chickens because you can create short pipes that deposit the BSF where the chickens can eat it. The labor required is the maintenance and food waste supply. Fruit trees are ideal. BSF absolutely loves mango and you can create a population of BSF in the tropics by cutting up 10 mangos in a container with a few holes in the top and letting it rot. The BSF will naturally find the mango if they are local in your area. (They are local almost everywhere).
But then you won’t be sure the total feed protein source percentage is adequate. Or that the BSF are as high in protein as required based on this waste (I guess regularly sampling them could give a reasonable estimate). I think the calculation of protein ratios from the BSF and making it consistent through the year to ensure proper feed macronutrient ratios for 90% egg production is the largest obstacle 🤔
@@samauthor342 Its totally possible, the problem is that people try to start systems with 100+ birds... you have to create a sustainable system with a small group of birds, maybe 5-10, then you build up your system and automate it and make it more scalable...
The problem with the western approach is that it is too hands-on... we can create natural systems using insects, plants, and the physical shapes of soil... but we must take time to study this way of thinking because it is not the same as the western ways of controlling every single variable... There are better options...
@@JackPitmanNica thrre are some systems here in the west that are very natural. No measuring involved. Usually it involves compost piles and other animals. Seems to work wonderfully for bird and egg production.
@@simonesmit6708 Point me towards more of that kind of content please, Im always looking for it! Any youtube channels you recommend?
@@CoolBreeze640 Thanks!! I'll check them out
When we had chickens on our farm, I used to allow them to free range wander during the day then only feed in the evening. They had access to a couple of dams for water and 25 acres of woodland to forage.The swarm of chickens would flock to my call to feed and then be protected during the nights. We had fat, happy chickens. I see that your farm has rich fertile soil too which i s an advantage to growing your own feed.
My good friend. I remember when you use to do it 2years ago. Your dedication on the farm made me to buy lands for farming. I have followed you for years now. Keep the good work
How about u give that land back to the wildlife and use it as a sanctuary.
@@nickovdub6131 0 context on their situation and that's the kind of comment you make? I guess the farmers whose produce you buy from the store should sell their land also? lol
@@nickovdub6131 how bout you buy the land off him and give it back the the wildlife as a sanctuary?
@@Heffdan let me guess you come from a 1st world nation that has already converted much of their landscape to cities and farms...correct?
Excellent video! Beautiful flock and well done on your explanations. Only thing I have to add, careful with the antibiotics. Doxicyclin is an antibiotic we use as humans and you don’t want to breed resistant strains within your flock that could jump species. Your camera presence is great and the flow through the video was awesome
Hi Dr. Daniel, i have read through quite a number of comments here and my submission would be, Since your farm has expanded beyond what it used to be, you should out source the supply of larvae to another farmer who will be willing to supply you with the needed quantity for your bird. its either you focus on the chicken for now, because they both need a lot of attentions (Chicken and BSF) at the same time.
I support those that said your title was not properly coined too, this could scare people.
i wish you the best bro...let us unluck the best of us.
Am Dennis Chidi - Nigeria
good Idea sir I was considering a similar plan
teaching people in especially rural areas to produce insects for poultry farmers
protein sources for birds gets very pricey here in Ghana too
@@MED42 king flys a bit biger than a blue bottle its got gray lines on it lay eggs on old vegitable carrots best but the maggots eat vegitabuls
Best precise answer, I know companies with 5 tones maggots harvest weekly and he's talking of 80kg per day
@@ianwhiteley5102 wow that's interesting any link suggestion to learn more?
I saw this channel for the first time now and I liked you from the first 2 minutes.
And by the end, I was in love with the content.
Great work.
Im glad someone is finally educating these hipster city boys from the west on how a farm actually looks like.
western people are so used to horrible KFC type factory farms, it is strange for us to see a bunch of happy hens
I've fed soldier fly larva that were dried, not live. Many people here (california, USA) raise mealworms for their birds, but as you say; it depends how much space it takes, and what the percentage of protein is. We've cut grass, weeds, stalks, garden trimmings and vegetable waste with ground dried eggshells. Yes, we searched through a lot of local possible resources, and they ended up getting an interesting mix. For a year, I also worked helping a caterer and came home frequently with leftover banquet food. LOL Things you and I couldn't afford in a restaurant....they ate like queens for a time! (It was "legally unsafe for human consumption" and we were only given it to give to our chickens.) NICE eggs, and YES I heard the "I laid an egg" song! hahaha I love hearing your girls! I've had chickens over the years, rarely more than 40. Thank you for sharing, it's a problem everyone caring for chickens faces! We can't afford to BUY all the feed!
Don’t feed animals live animals it is evil and wrong being eaten alive is painful and animals feel pain. Jesus told me this.
This channel is awesome!!! I already love homesteading channels and only mostly get to see farms from North America. Super happy to find Farm Up!
Excellent content.. engaging, straightforward & practical! Thank you! 🐔
Thank you for excellent information. I am in USA. I am just beginning again to raise BSF. I will be keeping my chickens in raised housing so that their droppings fall to the ground where the black soldier flies can populate, grow, lay eggs and be gathered to feed to the chickens. I do not keep more than 100 or so chickens and this works well. It would be, as you said, quite labor intensive to raise so many tons of BSF for the chickens but it might be a wonderful side business for you as well. I have seen it done on a very large scale. People here who keep a few chickens buy dried BSF larvae in small bags for more than we pay for a 50 pound bag of chicken feed - this amazes me and makes me want to begin this business for myself. To raise and sell the larvae AND the compost made by the larvae is highly profitable here. Thank you again for your video. We wish you all the best and look forward to hearing more from you.
I have absolutely no idea why I'm watching this or got recommended it, but there's something about dude that's got me hooked
Greetings Doc, why couldn’t your title read “Why I’ve Stopped My BSF Production?” Your title makes it seem as if the BSF are resulting in diseases or low conversion rate?
True, I tried house flies maggot almost finished my chicken with disease infection
@@margaretgathoni2281 I have tried to harvest maggots for my baby chicks before. They were OK for a week or so, but noticed few healthy chicks died of indigestion.
Exactly my initial thought
@@margaretgathoni2281 but why did you go for house flies when what is recommended is BSF. These do not carry any pathogens. House flies are vectors of diseases.
Thank you for this compliment
I think hiring 8-10 people a month to process all the waste is cheaper than buying soya. He fed the maggot with cow dung which is impractical. He should just asks for rotten veggies and fruit from merchant in markets. It worked really well here in Indonesia. Though it's true since it's labor intensive, most farmer that fed their chicken with bsf maggot always ended up making a factory for the bsf maggot itself. It uses a lot of space and workers.
There's is another option for feed :
Use the poultry as post harvest tillage.
You calculate a poultry/m² ratio.
Then let them out in the targeted parcel with a gate and security so they don't go where they're not needed and safe from predators.
Let them pasture, daytime only, usually 1/2 days is optimal.
They'll eat the harvest leftovers, unwanted seeds, pests, bugs and so on. Their claws provide for light tillage which build soil, in addition to their 💩.
Fresh air, is good for them, minimizes stress which provide healthier eggs and meat.
You save on pesticides and fertilizers to an extent, you get tillage that build soil instead of destroying.
Yeah it is true, that the cost of maize is very expensive. Currently, I'm doing a research project on the effects of dilution of dietary energy at a constant energy-to-protein ratio on feed conversion and carcass characteristic in broiler chicken. The results of this experiment be very very interesting to see how if reduction of the amount of dietary energy will have any impact on growth performance and what will be the economic efficiency of the different dietary treatments that I'm going to use. The project with be through before August 2023
Can't wait
The Ammonia produced by the chicken excrement is a serious issue when it comes to the health of the chickens .. Which means constant cleaning of the coup .. One of the other measures to lower the Ammonia is to add airflow through the coup from the floor to the top of the coup .. The airflow doesn't need to be high but it does need to be done .. Many farmers have movable coups which tractors can pull from one place to another to reduce the ammonia which requires flat ground .. This is another good method to help the chickens breath fresh air ..
Try getting into aquaponics systems where you can raise crops and fish at the same time so that you can raise minnows for your chickens to eat. Now if you design the system well it can be mostly automated and in the process you will be growing food that you can eat and sell, and raise fish of your choice. Anyway it's just something that might help cut down the cost of feeding the chickens, your family, and possibly bring in an extra source of income.
If you have a source for food scraps from restaurants, you can build a solar cooker to heat and disinfect the meat. (Directions on internet) Then let the food cool and give it to the chickens. Pretty soon it will attract insects. If you have a local beer brewery, you can feed them leftover malt and hops. But this feed situation is a nightmare. I'm going to start grinding mesquite pods. There are probably native plants in your area with roots or seeds you can grind up. Acorns are good, but its a multi-step process
Interesting to hear your challenges with BSFL. When I started farming them I faced many challenges but I can tell you now I produce about 100kg a day without much effort and with no-one helping me at all. I have sourced plenty of organic feed for them each day (all free) and I have tweaked my farm setup so it works with minimum effort. I will be using them to supplement the feed in my new chicken farm this year.
Hi, Duncan - do you have any tips to share?
Will they eat grass or leaves? I want to avoid driving to obtain bsf food.
@@TheRainHarvester no they won't. Manure or food waste or some other types of feed but not leaves and grass
Would like to know more info about he u harvest 100kg a day please
@@michaeljarvis8377 it's about 50/50 between self harvesting pre-pupae that crawl out of the bioponds up the slopes into collection channels and using a sieving machine (tumbler) to separate 16-17 DoL from the frass. I prefer to use a mix a of Instar 5 and Pre-Pupae
BSF is really just a composting technique that happens to create supplemental protein. Set up worm bins with bsf on top. You can trade the resulting vermicompost to your feed farmers. One of the best ways to take care of your chicken litter.
Since you can grow corn 🌽, you must be able to grow soya in your farm 🚜 too! Bravo 👏 Amigo
Brother, this is an awesome channel. I love being able to learn from someone who is actually out there doing things. Please keep this up!
Yes, exploiting blacks and animals is a hell of a duty. Give the man a medal. And learn...
This is my new favorite TH-cam Channel!!!
You are doing quite a job with that many birds. best of luck moving forward!
After the breweries have finished with the barley you can buy the left overs from them. Thats a good feed !! We give it to cattle in the uk.
Good day Dr. Daniel, please is it possible to share your recipe for the DIY chicken feed??
blend( electric blender machine ) some watermelon and cucumber together and then mix in some dried green algae powder till it becomes like a dough. they love it. And last a while in the freezer. But! for as many chickens as you have.. its just a treat for your favourite few :)
I'm not gonna lie, as much as I was intrigued by this video, I couldn't stop laughing at the sheer noise of this space lol.
My man you have charisma!
If you live near a creek set a minnow trap. Fresh minnows are very good for chickens and they love them. They will go nuts as those minnows flop around.
BSF is actually a better source of calcium than protein. And they should also be less than 5% of your chickens diet. Literally less than 1/2 of an ounce when their daily consumption of approximately 4 to 6 ounces.
Thanks for speaking out the truth. Bravo
Maize prices in Nigeria quadrupled during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and have not gone down since. Now I farm my own maize, but we have a challenge with herdsmen.
Which part of Nigeria do you stay
Am from Nigeria too,stay in the northern region
Same here in Kenya, prices doubled or tripled at the farm level...maize is a staple food here in Ke.
Have you tried madre de agua?
It's starting to be a popular feed here in Southeast Asia as poultry, cattle and fish feed. You don't need a lot of water or dig any pond. You can even grow it as fence or boundary tree.
Edit: you can even process it with soya cake into animal feed pellets for long term storage. It may help mitigate the high cost of feed as a cheap filler that is also high in protein and beneficial for animal health.
I'm interested in this. Do you have an email I can reach you on?
What is made da agua the name in English please
@@temitopeolayode8962 Nacedero or you can try Madre de cacao as well
@@temitopeolayode8962 No unique to english name, but a lot of names- madre de agua and palo de agua are the ones i've seen most often. Scientific name is Trichanthera gigantea.
@@temitopeolayode8962 tricantera. Chickens, goats, rabbits, etc. They all love tricantera plus its easy to grow and can be used as a fence.
Thanks for the truthful video about your own experience.
Great video. I love your farm! If the tops of the roosting boxes are spiky, the chickens will not roost on top of them and make them poopy. Look for pigeon or chicken spikes. You can get them in metal or plastic.
That's crazy. It got so expensive for maze. Would it have helped to grow your own maze? Wild situation, I know that a lot of a chickens diet is going to require some grain and protein from grazing on bugs. You've got so many beautiful healthy chickens, place is so clean there can't be anything other than the feed effecting them so. Thank you for sharing.
Dirt to soil by Gabe Brown is good read. Mixed cover crops great way to get organic matter increase in soil so it holds more water for cash crops
I put lots of piles of sticks and grass and lots of slaters and other wood insects grow up in the piles of sticks and grass. We in New Zealand like to have a few chickens at home.
What beautiful fertile land you have. Good luck with the chooks!
Try meal worm, made with corn or porridge
Look into it
I created worm bins, with leftover waste
Not only did chickens get worms, but it biodegrades the kitchen waste fast, eventually you are left with amazing topsoil
Don’t feed animals live animals it is evil and wrong being eaten alive is painful and animals feel pain.
Hi Dr ... Soya doc + BSF by adding and giving your birds both at the same time. Right
.that means you are not balancing the protein source.
Due to the imbalance the birds are having the loose poohs.
Regarding the raising of BSF, you have given us a good indication that it's not feasible for a chicken farmer to farm BSF alternatively. Due to the reasons you have given.
If you put ramps, that lead to fall offs into buckets, you can get the Soldier flies to collect themselves,
This is usually how folks harvest black soldier flies, as when they are ready, they stop eating, and collect into the buckets by climbing out of the food.
Just have to look up designs, and make a large enough system with plenty of ways for them to isolate into the buckets, and you could just throw waste into a bin, and collect them each day easy.
" when they are ready, they stop eating, and collect into the buckets by climbing out of the food. " have you got any video or another material explaining this method?
@@chandimamk th-cam.com/video/QkBUd4dOr7w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ke0keUGzo6a3-sdd
@@chandimamk watch this one
Glad to see you offer roosts to your birds. It's nice to preserve some natural behaviors
I use the same amount of food as you do for not only chickens ducks and turkeys. Feeding soldier fly is only a treat i give them once a week. Any more it is not worth it. Right now we are 60% maze due to below zero temps. You are a very smart chicken raiser.
How much daylight do you have ? Idk if you are aware but laying hens need 14 hrs of daylight to lay eggs, also depending on the breed the egg laying production will drop a little bit after 2 years. If you are not getting 14 hrs of daylight you can use light bulbs to supplement, however it's a tradeoff because hens laying eggs all year round will require more nutrients, as it takes more out of them. External parasites like mites and lice can cause a drastic drop in egg production too and lead to internal illnesses. im not sure where you live at but arround looks pretty green with many different kinds of plants, there is probably a native plant arround you that you can use in chicken feed. The good thing about chickens is they can and will eat just about anything. Much love ❤️ 🙏
From the day you mentioned using fly larvae I knew it was not practical. I am a feedmilling engineer that worked in mills poducing more than 20 tons per hour, a quick calculation and I knew.
Idk if Madre de agua available in your area but I feel like Lantana, Vanderblomst, Yellow Sage, Red Sage and Shrub Verena might be. Those are flowers that chicken eat as well and full of nutrients.
Have you tried duckweed?
It has very good protein content. It's ability to regenerate fast makes it possible to be used in a big farm like yours. It's mostly used in aquaculture as a supplement feed for Tilapia fish. Duckweed is also useful for water filtration. You simply put chicken manure in a water tank or pond and most often duckweed will do very well with good sunlight.
it would be similar to the azola he talks about. It would require a huge area to produce at the scale he would need.
@@ashleycampbell8767 yeah azolla's higher than duckweed. It works well for me because i have fish and it's a basically free byproduct, but if i didn't have fish it would not make sense.
Duckweed is NOT a good source of major protein for Tilapia ,, using at at 10% of feed is ok.
@@tilapiadave3234 with a name like Tilapia Dave, he’s gotta know his stuff. :D
I'm not sure how you feel about alcohol, but the leftover brewer's yeast at the bottom of a batch from beer-brewing is very high in protein with some sugars, and makes excellent chicken feed. It's also very high in vitamin B and will help the chickens' immune systems after a batch of antibiotics because of the probiotic qualities of the yeast. If you leave the yeast out to dry for a day or so it will remove any remnant alcohol from it.
Similarly if you have solar panels for electricity, you can convert a solar panel into an algae farm and then strain off the algae for your birds through standard coffee filters. It's similarly nutritious for chickens. This method does not produce alcohol, and other than the chemicals for your water supply it is basically free food to help supplement. Cody's Lab has a video on doing this if you look up "Cody's Algae Panel."
Thanks so much,u doing a great job, but do we feed them,is it by mixing it with d feed or just like that, and also can we mix cassava peal with to feed to feed d chicken or is it good to feed d chicken with cassava peal only
have you tried grasshoppers ?
Or Locusts
Cheers from Canada. Thank you being so thorough!
God bless you, you do a great job raising your chickens.
thanks a lot for some of the most insightful content on the matter i've found so far ...following you from now on
Many International Poultry Association already disallowing commercial poultry in using ANTIBIOTICS on birds production. What can you say about this?
Quite hard. It's life. You'll always need the antibiotics.
It makes me so happy to see "real" chickens, and not the poor ones bred here in the United States, that are so overweight they just lay around all day, and die of heart attacks a lot.
Thank you for experimenting and educating others on what didn't work out well! Respect and gratitude!
I didnt even search for this channel, but I like your energy brah. Got my sub
How was the results after feeding them to the chicken in the short span of time you were doing BSF
Thanx for video, I am glad to know the truth of the Fly trap, you and the birds are happy, GL and be blessed
I love hearing this man speak 💯
I known someone he has many restaurant then the waste from his restaurants was the food source for his BSF Farm.
He also have a house & automatic springler for the moist. Then everyday he can get 35KG on larvae.
So true in large scale it will took proper planning for it to be sustainable. 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Have you considered feeding them dry mealworms? It's very cheap in bulk, and contains around 50% protein by weight... They are also very easy to raise in large quantities, but then you also need grain and vegetable scraps to feed them... You can also add in reject eggs, cooked. Cooked eggs are about 90% protein by weight.
Supplement feed with hemp seed. You get to grow the hemp for medicine and everything else but also get seed for more hemp and more chickens
Im very stuck desperately need your help , how do you mix pig feed with BSF . A simple ration. Can i simply mix maize+Bsf+Limestone would that be enough just those 3 ingredients?
BSF are also able to compost chicken poop as they do not completely digest their feed leaving 30% available for re-composters. When I had chickens , hubby made a concrete -casket' system with ramps which the collected poops were fed into. Realize scale up is problematic but for smaller flocks (under 50) worked well. Very healthy, they loved the BSF and produced well. Just a thought. Recompiling their poop plus other waste is a good system. Hope that this helps.
Can you share the design of the system?
Вы кормили только чёрным солдатом ? Зерно добавляли ? Спасибо ❤
Doesn't chicken poop contain too much ammonia for the bsf larvae?
Great job! Love the video and info. Keep up the great job and thanks a bunch.
Great video Doc!!
let many of the plants go to seed for continuous supply of seeds for next year's food supply for your chickens. The barley seed may only take you one or two bags to start out with one season, but letting several fodder trays go all the way into maturity to have your own seed growing source year after year. same with all you grow in your garden as food supply for you and your chickens to eat. you can make sorghum syrup from the Sorghum stalks, make a hot grain cereal to eat from the heads, the leaves can be shredded up as silage and stored for up to a year as food for animals, chickens etc. Amaranth, same thing you can make the seeds into a flour and make flat bread or tortillas, fill with cooked meat, vegetables tacos/burritos.
Hey everyone, thx Doc for sharing 😍
Respect from California..
Hello Daniel,
There are farmers that can supply you with the quantities of BSF feed you need. Maybe you do not need to actually do it yourself.
I found your channel today. I watched your vlog and I am impressed by your presentation and your practical knowledge. Now I just subscribed and looking forward for more of your videos
Glad to have you
You could still "use" the fly larvae to "process" organic waste if you don't want to make compost out of the waste. Feed the larvae as supplimentary food to the chickens or sell the larvae.
Wow you have some really beautiful healthy clean free range chicken, my friend. Subscribed.
That thing over his eye kept distracting me no lie lol
You have your chickens in unsanitary conditions. They need constant fresh pasture or heavy mulching where they are.
that requires an insane amount of land
yes yes you can suggest diapers
Do you include a rotational grazing plan for the chickens? How do you manage their manure?
Have you tried using chicken manure as food for black soldier fly?
Great video. On the communal laying boxes just add a skinny beam and put a steeper angle roof top on the laying house. A thin sheet of steel works well.
amazing video, i hope you find a cheap alternative to feed. loved seeing the work and love you put into raising them
The easiest way to get maggots for chickens is directly from the source. Rotational grazing of cattle is a great way to improve soil health and therefore fodder yields. Then 3 days after the cattle have gone through a patch, follow through with your chickens. They’ll go to town eating the maggots that have hatched in the dung. Furthermore, the chickens will also be eating other bugs like beetles, worms and ants. Further diversifying their feedstock and improving the health and vitality of the chickens.
I do this very thing only with goats & sheep, rotational graze with the chickens being 2-3 days behind the herd. This way they get a varied diet with a good mix of insects and field mice.
@@leehiller2489 I’ve been told that goats and cattle are a great combination too. Due in part to the fact that as the goats go through, they’ll happily munch on weeds and shrubs the cattle don’t like, leaving the prime grasses for the cows. Furthermore, each animals digestive tract is perfect for destroying the eggs and larvae of parasites that affect the other.
Yep, they have zero competition for graze as they go after a different diet. I keep sheep for grass and goats for browse. I'd like to have bovine but I'm too small and my pasture couldn't take it so meat sheep it is.
Yeah, i already research on BSF they're not for full replacement fodder, probably good for 10-20% feeds replacement and needs to be cooked a bit to kill the germs. And fresh BSF only contain 8-10% protein, the one mentioned 45% or more is the processed one into dry powder. Unless you can get free or extremely cheap high fiber feeds for BSF to increase feeds conversion rate then it's not worth it, and only be good for supplement snacks.
I suggest to feed chickens small shrimps,
Bcus
Its protein with shell
It can ge grown in small tubs
It can be stored for a long time by sun drying
Along with seeds and chicken feed, just mix few shrimps, and you will have a healthy strong, and beautiful feathered birds
Doc can you please teach us how to formulate chicken feeds; both layers and broilers.
I will, again
@@FarmUp please can you give me the formula for both chicken?
I have no idea how I ended up on this video, but ended up watching all the way through anyway.. Very charismatic guy
Giving antibiotics to layers in production. The eggs from medicated birds should not be eaten or sold until at least 10 days after treatment. Are you still selling your eggs? Or is the rule different in Africa.
The maggots of the green and blue bottle fly would be easier to raise, but I don't know how healthy it would be for chickens. There was a guy who raised his own catfish on fly maggots by using rotting kitchen beef scraps. He built some sort of hanging bucket with a bottom that has a pitched bottom so that when the maggots developed and grew and dropped off the beef scraps, the maggots would roll off the pitched wooden bottom and drop right into the water, where the fish would eat them. You didn't need to worry about the fly egg production because just placing the meat outdoors attracted the flies.
how much land do you own? look into growing different varieties of sunflowers, sorghum, amaranth, add in a good calcium source of oyster shells with the seeds, and BSF larvae, and your feed should have plenty of minerals, and protein for keeping the health of the chickens. Put out barley fodder, you can grow in trays on a four- or five-tiered shelf wire rack that can each shelf hold 3 plastic trays of soaked barley grain that will give you 20 lbs. of fodder for your chickens every 7-9 days the trays will grow to about 6-8" in height and sprout all the barley grain at the bottom of the fodder. What few grains that don't sprout the chickens eat as well. No waste. Seek out sources of fruits, like melons, strawberries, blueberries, the chickens will peck of the Rhines and the remaining's can be used to put into compost pile for your garden for adding rich, nutrient compost for next year's planting.
Thank you for your feedback on this research. I was hoping it was practical but alas it is not. That leaves me with the option of planting, buying and storing soya😢
So soldier flies would be a good option for someone with 100 chickens or less? Or what do you think the max # of chickens one person could feed with soldier flies?
Scaling is the word, but in theory you can feed as much chickens with bsf as you want. Results are awesome, tricky at first but amazing if you get the hang of it, do it efficiently. You can get a lot of help/groups. Hope your weather is nice. Cheers
ED Either crab-grass, blue-grass, or bermuda-grass, left to grow as it could; there was a plastic-wrapped-soil-sack while the grass weathered a whole year over-growth, and the grass deposited surprising wealth of seed: even if they're unwelcome plants, they might secretly make food nobody knows about but a small few unhappy trivia buffs. The worst plants are easily toasted seeds.
Great video. They look like healthy chickens. Chickens from farms in my country always have pale combs and bald spots.
came for the chicken, stayed for the accent.
you might look into making probiotics for your birds. ... lacto bacillus culture fermentation. ferment cultures. then spray on food....
you can use rice wash water to capture the microbes. and use some good quality milk to grow out the lacto bacilluses. then you can use the lacto bacillus to help keep their water clean. help digestion. you can spray it on the ground. the food the water ect. it can help alot...
Just FYI if you put a PVC pipe at a slight upward angle sticking out of the compost box, the fly larvae will self-harvest when they are ready to pupate.
NICE OKRA ! Also your banana plants look big and magical. Is that the burgundy/red-colored Okra? I grew it for the first time last year, in California. Be well
It's a commercial enterprise in itself to do it at large enough scale
Love your VIVES soul brother 👍👍👍🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️✊️✊️✊️✊️✊️
your r dedicated egg farmer.. doing all the hard chores.. I hope u succeed & grow larger.. keep well, ur a hard worker & have a good heart