this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
41 points (95.6% liked)
askchapo
22652 readers
299 users here now
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
-
Posts must ask a question.
-
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
-
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
-
Try [email protected] if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Congratulations on 8 months, that's a big achievement!!
My birthday is coming in a few weeks, and I've always felt much more New-Years-y about that than January 1, so it's a big reassessment time. Unfortunately, I had a couple deeply traumatic incidents around my birthday two years ago, so it's feeling pretty heavy, and I don't want to reassess, I don't want to celebrate my time on the planet - I just want to hide.
I would very much like to go back to having it be a week of pestering everyone I know and telling them how I appreciate having them in my life.
On a positive note, my broody chickens helped hatch more than a dozen guinea keets, and I've got my favorite chicken (Ada Lovelace) penned off from the rest of the flock to raise the babies until they're fledged. She is such a great mom - anytime I bring her treats, she checks to make sure it's safe then calls the babies over before she has any for herself ❤️
Also, the guineas are complete assholes, but we've seen <5 yellow jackets in the yard this year, so maybe they're worth the trouble! I think I would legitimately, no euphemisms, actually fucking lose it if I got swarmed again.
Hope youre able to find peace on your birthday, and give those chickens some love! They look and sound absolutely adorable![emoji Care-Comrade Care-Comrade](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/a4b3e07f-7bad-42d1-beb7-a026e0191c37.png)
Wasn't expecting to see more discussions of chickens here so soon.
Coincidentally, yesterday a different user here managed to provoke a big ol' rambling infodump that included stuff about keeping chickens.
Have you ever thought about establishing a black soldier fly larvae farm to feed your chickens? It's something that can be really simple and effective with minimal effort and virtually zero downsides. Black soldier fly larvae are very nutritious and they're unusually high in calcium, meaning that they're an ideal food to add into a chicken's diet.
Yes!! In fact, I have been toying with letting this become my next special interest. I looked at some of the pre-made bins you can get online and have been lightly pondering how I might make one and where I would dig a hole for it. I would need to order eggs too, because our winters are a little too cold for them.
🤩 I have to go find that infodump!!
You can find it in the comments of this post.
Honestly I'd advise against buying a purpose-designed bin.
You can have them in-ground if you like, but it's not a necessity.
BSF are attracted to rotting things and they're actually surprisingly common, even in areas where the winters get very cold. Obviously they aren't active when it gets to freezing temperatures but either they lay eggs that go dormant when the winter weather comes on or they recede during the winter months and then rapidly repopulate, moving from the warmer regions into the regions that have just recently defrosted.
If you have a purpose built worm farm, it's worth noting that BSF larvae will outcompete your worms so it can cause a conflict. There are ways to manage this, including physically separating them but as BSF do not tolerate wet environments, you can take advantage of this biological quirk and throw a lot of high moisture stuff into a worm farm or you can even flood it - the worms will manage but the BSF larvae won't.
Also worth mentioning that it seems as though BSF compost/frass is not nearly as rich as a fertiliser compared to what compost worms produce, and my hunch is that this is because BSF are extremely efficient so they don't leave many nutrients behind.
If it's cheap, go for it.
BSF have a remarkable sense of smell. I'm not sure about the science behind it but it's commonly held that BSF larvae emit pheromones that attract soldier flies because once you have a few then suddenly you will find a big influx of soldier flies. My hunch is that it's an evolutionary adaptation which signals to nearby soldier flies that the ideal conditions for BSF larvae have been discovered, so it's like a beacon signalling the soldier flies to converge, breed, and lay eggs right at that particular spot.
You could try taking advantage of this by buying some live BSF larvae from a local reptile specialist store if there's any around. It's not guaranteed to work but it might be a cheaper option.
In all honesty, there's probably BSF around that you don't notice because they aren't a nuisance like blowflies are and unless you know what you're looking for it's easy to assume that little flying insect that flitted past the corner of your field of vision was just a fly or maybe some sort of little wasp.
If you want to go hunting for them, I'd look at any local animal paddocks, especially if there are cows. You are almost certainly going to find BSF in those places.
If you want to lure them, there are a few things that the soldier flies love. Rotting meat is one, which is pretty off-putting for obvious reasons. They also love corn which has gone sour - you could get a jar and add some cornmeal, masa, unpopped popcorn kernels or whatever you have on hand then add enough water for it to soak and get soupy then leave it with the lid on to ripen for however long it takes before it starts smelling really sour. I'd say that you could do a very similar thing with dog or cat kibble, or you could mix corn and kibble together, and it should attract them while not smelling as offensive as last week's roadkill.
When you do open up the jar, I'd try to do it on a warmer day (say about 20°C or more - the hotter the better) with a light breeze. BSF are very strong fliers but if it's really windy they might have trouble finding the source of the enticing odours.
Honestly though, this is probably overkill. If you have a compost heap, especially one that is open air, you probably have some soldier flies lurking around looking for the right place to lay their eggs already.
My first wild sighting of BSF was in an urban environment where there was no agricultural land anywhere nearby. I had an in-ground compost bin with a lid that I would use to reduce my environmental footprint a little. Without any exaggeration, I would open the lid of the compost bin and I'd get soldier flies within seconds. Not swarms of them by any means but typically just one or a few.
If you have any compost or areas where there's a pile of animal shit, especially if it's a bit stinky, you could cut a small piece of corrugated cardboard, affix that to a stake or a stick and plant it so that the cardboard is directly above the pile. If there are any poles or posts near the pile you could also put cardboard strips on them.
It will only take a couple of minutes to put together with scraps that you have lying around - even if you don't manage to lure any BSF this way it's not like it would be any great loss to try your luck.
Up until fairly recently it was commonly held that BSF were too tricky to keep in a greenhouse or that it wasn't possible to do it. More recently I've seen some indoor commercial operations that indicate that it's practical to keep BSF in greenhouses.
My guess is that because the soldier fly itself only lives for like a few days max, people assumed that they were dying because of the greenhouse conditions rather than them dying because that's just what BSF do.
If I lived in a climate that had freezing winter temperatures and I had a greenhouse, I'd probably just try my hand at overwintering BSF in the greenhouse by moving a BSF farm into it. It's not like you'd have anything to lose by trying it out. If it worked out, you'd be able to have a steady stream of BSF larvae year-round which would be pretty neat. You'd just want to make sure that you allow a percentage of larvae to pupate to reach the adult stage to keep the egg supply going.
There's a perfect spot for a greenhouse against the south-facing side of my house, very close to the gutter drain. 🤩 I can combine my rain barrel wishes with my greenhouse wishes with my BSF wishes and my worm wishes.
I wish I could spend a day with you walking through my daily life and have you tell me all this stuff I wish I knew about all of it. You are amazing, and I am so grateful every time I get to soak up some of your knowledge. Thank you so much!
Please feel free to infodump about greenhouses and rain barrels too! 😂
Oh neat!
Sounds like it would be the ideal place to build a water wall in your greenhouse to use as thermal mass/a thermal battery.
That's so kind of you to say. I have a head filled with random information and it's nice to be able to put it to use in a way that makes a positive impact.