Happy Chicken
In nature, chicken spend considerable amounts of time eating live insects. This is considered as their natural behavior. However, laying hens generally have limited access to insects in current intensive farming systems. Feather pecking is a key welfare challenge. The larvae of our Black Soldier Fly are nutritious and feeding of live larvae could provide a solution to reduce feather pecking in chicken.
A new research evaluated the effects of including live larvae on production performance, egg quality, behavior and feather condition of laying hens. The results show that live Black Soldier Fly larvae can be used in combination with local plant proteins to successfully replace soy in diets of laying hens. A key outcome of this study is that feeding chicken live larvae had a positive effect on the feather condition of birds.
