A company in Britain, AgriProtein, is about to create the country’s first insect farm, harvesting larvae from billions of flies to supply protein to make feed for family pets, poultry and farmed fish.
How about that!? Each industrial plant will contain around 8.5 billion black soldier flies: one for more than every person on the planet.
We are told by Jon Ungoed-Thomas of The Times newspaper that a dozen potential locations are earmarked for these facilities including near London, Birmingham and Manchester.
The first large fly farm opened in South Africa in 2016. There is currently a ban on providing insect protein for livestock feed in the European Union but this is likely to be reviewed.
Jason Drew, 51, a co-founder with his brother of AgriProtein, says that flies offer an environmentally friendly way to provide animal feed. The current two main sources of animal protein, soybean and fishmeal have had a devastating environmental impact on rainforests and oceans.
Personally, I like the idea a lot. Firstly it may well prevent euthanised cats feeding living cats which I discussed in a previous article. And if it isn’t other cats feeding cats then all manner of roadkill and other diseased animals end up in cat food together with grain so it would be nice if we could use pure insect created protein. And insects are the prey of domestic cats so there is a natural connection there too.
Just a warning one of our cats got sick years ago eating moths. At least that was the final conclusion of our vet. It was not serious but there were several days of house poopy runnystuff and sheets on everything.
I believe somewhere I seen mealworm flour being sold.
I would assume any insects being raised for food purposes would have a controlled chemical free diet.
And many parts of the world see insects as a regular part of their diet.
Michael, for kitties, flies are sky raisins!! LOL!! I have a really cute pic stating such. . .♥♥♥
And, yes, if a moth or fly gets in the house, I tell my *kids* to go catch the little piece of protein!! — but since the pic, I tell them to catch the sky raisin!! ♥♥♥
I think it’s a great idea as well. . . ♥♥♥