bobad, I'm feeding them 1 lb/day which is about 2.5 cups. That's just a quantity I chose based on the population of BSF that I currently have. I don't mind feeding them by hand for this experiment, but for the goal of automatically producing larger quantities I will need to dispense several times more feed.
A 3 ft diameter set up would process around 24 lbs of table scraps/day, but the feed is more concentrated so I would be happy with 12 lbs/day.
That represents about 1.5 gallons of feed per day.
Since this feed is more concentrated (dried), I'm hoping that it will produce larvae at a 4:1 or 3:1 ratio.
12 lbs/day @ 4:1 would be 3 lbs of larvae/day or about 1000 lbs/year.
12 lbs of feed/day @ $.17 = $2.00/day or $730/year.
1000 lbs/$730 = $.73/lb.
To compare that to fish pellets you would need to factor in the 44% dry content of the BSF which equals 440 lbs/year at a cost of $1.66/lb when raised exclusively on feed ($8.24/50 lb). That seems a bit high to me, but the cost can be reduced to virtually nothing provided you have a source of suitable waste to feed the BSF. Obviously there is a lot of guess work in these figures. I tried to be conservative in all of my estimations.
A great place to begin looking for free BSF feed is from your ponds. As DJT suggested, the larvae might eat FA and pond weeds, in fact I'd be amazed if they didn't. Add to that any culled fish and fish guts and the cost will start to drop. If you raise livestock you can probably get even cheaper feed. The BSF could also process feed that is spoiled/moldy/buggy etc.
Thanks for helping bobad. I guess it's pretty easy to get me off on a tangent when discussing BSF.
