The First Lady + more good news

Today, the crawl-off bucket had 20 pupa. The maggots also completely devoured the chicken feed, and hopefully the remainder of maggots will pupate within the next week or so. Strangely, there were also a few fungus maggots in the main part of the pod. This is the first time Rylo or myself have seen anything other than BSF within the pod (except, of course, for that one time a pest fly flew in, they buzzed right out again).

And on to the good stuff . . we have males! Four, to be exact. However, one isn't in such great shape- he has the same wing deformity that our previous two adult males had. Rylo and I hypothesize that this is due to low humidity but we'll have to fact check that one.

Not to end on a sour note or anything, but we do have one concern. Today, we clearly saw a large, healthy female maggot eating a pupa. The best that we can hope for is that BSF can tell sick from healthy pupa. Perhaps, the healthier pupa are the ones that crawl off (in to the bucket) when they are very mature larvae while the pupa that are in less than perfect health remain in the main part of the pod?