Cool, Thanks *makes note to add extra bucket to beach stuff*
I just made arrangements with my closest-to-work cafe to collect their quart a day of coffee grounds, and overheard as I was leaving they raise chickens. I'd already told a server (2 kids & tons of dead produce) and a coworker about the critters (during lunch, but they are used to me :P )
I put a 15 year old onto them too, he was looking for a job but no one will hire a 15 yr old. Bugs, lawns and car detailing.
I could offer to pay him to pick grubs Have to remember to cost packaging and labels into the analysis too.
There was another question...thinks...
Oh, yes. Somewhere I read the grubs didnt like soil in the substrate. My compost *looks* nearly like soil, but is nearly entirely cellulose (a gallon of food waste in over a cubic yard of leaves and grass with another gallon of livestock urine) and the happy maggots are, well, very happy. Is it the mineral content of soil they do not like? Also, do you know if they use the nitrogen waste itself or the bacterial load feeding on it as a food supply? I'm wondering if they will occupy a nearby pile of just leaves and urine as opposed to a more mixed-content pile.
I'd look it up myself, but you seem to be awake and if I log into the university databases, I'll be up for hours. They gave 270+ databases, even FORMIS...which only has articles pertaining to ants
If anyone else plays with experimental compost heaps, I recommend building them on bedliners and covered by bedliners to keep tree roots out and avoid groundwater concerns. Mine are pretty much either odorless or even pleasant unless I am tearing down and rebuilding a pile and that soon subsides in a few minutes.
Don't forget to wash your hands, you don't know where those cattle have been *grin*
The bad news is I found 20 dealated king formosan termites in the house last night, ID confirmed this morning by the local extension service. Oh well, I wasnt using that cash anyway...
Have to remember to cost packaging and labels into the analysis too.
