Earlier this year my parents discovered a hatch of larvae in their compost bin. They asked me if I knew what they were, but I’d not seen that many of the little burrowers before. My mom called the county extension office and found out they were harmless but I don’t recall what the little dudes were.
As it turns out, the little grubs were Soldier Fly maggots, and they’re excellent vermicomposters. If we’d thought of it, we could have simply given some to the chickens as well.
Alan is going to give me a handful of red worms and soldier fly maggots to seed my compost bin. I’m less interested in keeping compost for gardening, but I’d like to keep food scraps out of the waste stream. The chickens aren’t very reliable for eating scraps either. It’s like pulling beaks to get them to eat lettuce, though they do seem to enjoy the star anise that I can’t get rid of from the various flower beds.
I bet the chickens will appreciate the compost (mixed with mags and worms) you put out. I know the robins went crazy on ours.
Apparently, if you feed marigold petals to your chickens, the egg yolks will be nice and orange. Not sure if you just need to have marigolds growing in the yard or if you actually have to de-petal them and feed them directly to the chickens.