09/19/07 Maggots as trout fish food

Scientists from the University of Idaho and Idaho State University are raising black soldier flies on manure that comes from Idaho dairy farms. ST HILAIRE "There's quite a bit of research in the black solider fly for manure management and so I thought that I would use that as a model and look to see if the fish would accept the black solder fly as a feed product." Sophie St Hilaire is an aquatic species veterinarian at Idaho States who first hit upon the notion of pairing black soldier flies with dairy manure as a substitute for pricey fish meal in trout diets. St Hilaire says they're raising maggots as a fish food and thanks to research in Georgia and Texas they know these warm weather flies can reduce manure piles. ST HILAIRE "Let's try adding another waste product that Idaho has which is fish offal from the processing plants and see if we can't alter the fatty acid profile so the fat content on these flies and sure enough what we found was that we can make them healthy by adding fish offal. They end up with these Omega 3 fatty acids in them. Black soldier flies are a tropical species that cannot survive Idaho's winter weather and therefore should not become a pest. They stop feeding when they become adults, a stage that lasts about two weeks. There's more to this intriguing research. That's coming tomorrow. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott