Production 101: Eggies

Eggies: where flies lay their eggs. This is the term the industry uses and I've been making these bad boys this morning.

Attracted to the sun, flies live and operate in a very light environment, but they don't want their eggs to be seen by potential predators. The tiny gaps present a perfect opportunity for the flies to lay their eggs in.

A fly has 2 requirements for where they lay their eggs:

🪰 In a dark crevice. I've screwed a bolt through 5 strips of plastic 10cm long, separated by a washer to give a small space in which to lay the eggs. Don't worry, these will be re-used many many times!

🪰 Near a food source. Unlike house flies, black soldier flies lay their eggs near food, so when they hatch they have a short distance to crawl to start feeding. I'll place the eggies above an 'attractant' food source and, as Fly2Feed is situated on a dairy farm, this happens to be cow manure. The eggies are removed daily and replaced with clean eggies before the eggs hatch. The neonates (baby larvae) break out the eggs after 2-3 days and crawl out into a substrate that has been prepared for them where they can grow 5,000 times their size and become a valuable protein source for chickens.

As a bonus tip, flies tend to cluster their eggs where other flies have already laid them - evidence of learning from their elders. So cleanliness of the breeding set-up is of high priority, otherwise eggs will end up where you can’t collect them.