Seems like it would be easy enough with running multiple units to make sure that the intake and output is crossing species. It's all supplemental forage anyway, just to recycle the organic waste the farm is producing. If I get into rabbit production for the dogs as well (my dogs all eat a raw diet) then I can send that the chicken direction. My biggest concern is finding enough food to keep the BSF colonies cranking at capacity. I have plenty of fresh manure but the animal protein sources will be intermittent as we only slaughter every eight weeks right now. Eventually I hope it will be a monthly and even a bi-weekly event. I'd love to see a 4'(or larger) unit in each of my three grow out paddocks cranking out 10# of larvae a day for the 50 chickens in each one. Plus another 4' unit pushing at full capacity for my little finned friends. That would be pretty cool.
I figured as much about the BSF females, that's why I want to put them on a sand/gravel drainage "pad"
It will obviously be next year but if this works out, I would love to be able to do an article on my farm site about the Alpaca/BSF/Chicken and Fish loop.
Before I learned about soldier flies my intention was just to go with the bucket method and use the bottle flies that frequent the manure piles. They do the same thing, but are not near as efficient so the "smell" factor comes into play.
Hopefully it won't be an issue getting a colony started, I don't know if I have BSF here or not. I had two of my goats killed last year and they were crawling with white maggots within 36 hours...took me a little while to get them buried.
