VelaCreations

interesting, I will do some research on them and see what I can find. If I could find a species that could consume poultry, rabbit, and/or fish manure at a reasonable efficiency (5:1 or better) it would be a big asset for us.

I am currently working on an integrated food production system in Northern Mexico. We breed rabbits for meat, and then use their byproducts to feed other animals. Currently, we use rabbit manure to feed to earthworms, and then we harvest the earthworms to feed poultry. Poultry manure and butcher waste from the poultry and rabbits go to Black Soldier Fly larvae, which we harvest to feed the poultry. I am wondering if we could incorporate feeder roaches into our system. The BSFL have a feed conversion of about 5:1 (5 lbs of manure/offal to produce 1 lb of larvae). They produce well in the summer, but for winter months, they are dormant. We must keep their container outside to allow for adults to deposit eggs, so we are limited by local climate conditions. We are considering roaches, because we could keep their housing indoors in a controlled environment year round. What is the general feed conversion ratios of popular feeder roaches? Are there species that would be able to consume poultry manure and/or butcher wastes? We are constantly looking for more species to incorporate into this model to increase productivity and sustainability. I hope people here will have some ideas on how to incorporate roaches using waste materials. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!