The Disadvantage of letting chickens Eat Maggots

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Are you calling all larval forms that look like worms "maggots?" Cause to me, only housefly or the like have "maggots." They are the disgusting little white worms 1/8" - 3/8" long that who have one pointy end and another larger end. The rest are mealworms, waxworms, larvae, etc.

To answer your question, no, there are no "safe" fly maggots (as I defined above) you can raise for your chickens even on pure vegetable matter.

Mealworms you can though. And Black Soldier Fly larvae.
 
I was always taught that the larval form of any fly is a maggot. Whether they're house flies, soldier flies, bot flies, fruit flies, or any other kind of flies. [http://www.gardenguides.com/81492-types-maggots.html][/url] for example.
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I've been also looking in to raising mealworms, though that seems rather labor intensive, and I'm already pressed for time with all my various projects. That's why I was learning about maggots - much less time and labor.
 
I'm unsure why mealworms look time intensive to you. I have them in a bin and throw in vegetable and fruit scraps every few days. That's all I do. And they are in the house, in fact about 4 feet from where I'm sitting. No odor, no mess or anything from them.

As for soldier flies, if you look at them and their larvae, they look nothing like what you normally think of as a Fly or Maggot so I don't mentally put them in the same class as the other flies. Guess that's just me.

Soldier flies, for me, are a lot more trouble than mealworms. I think mealworms are the easiest, most trouble free thing you can grow. I did have a problem with moths but now they are in dirt instead of oatmeal, etc. and no moths any more.

PS - I have never encountered or even heard of any of the maggots on that web page, in spite of gardening for over 30 years. I guess it was written for another part of the country? Not sure.
 
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I found another "how-to" site on the mealworms that looked a lot easier, like what you were describing.
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The 1st one I saw wanted 4 different bins of different sizes, with 2 different types of filler, and said something about checking and lightly misting each one every day, sifting crud out twice a week, sifting out the different stages and moving them to the next bin, etc., etc...
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stuff I would either have to set alarms for so I didn't forget, or coax the teenager into doing, which likely wouldn't happen. It spooked me off from the project!
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Now, though, I think I'll give it a try.
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Did you get your starter mealworms from a bait shop, online, or somewhere else?

(edited for spelling *sigh*)
 
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I didn't gather eggs for 3 days. When I did go out to gather them I discovered an egg had been broken, there was a big stink and a few maggots crawling on the outside of my eggs. I threw everything into a garbage bag and put out for the trash, but not before one of my girls ate several of the maggots like they were the best thing ever. I am wondering what I should do if anything about this. Yes, I know I should have gathered eggs before there were 18 of them in the nesting box. Thank you.
 
US Pipe bored test holes in a grid pattern on a former property of mine looking for mineral deposits. A few years later I had a bad out break of limber neck that only effected the chickens who were fortunate enough to free range but I never lost or even had a sick bird that was confined. Needless to say I almost completely filled up one of these test holes with dead 'Free Range' chickens. I never did learn what caused the out break. Just don't feed your birds maggots, it's not worth the risk.
 
DownOnMainSt said:
I didn't gather eggs for 3 days. When I did go out to gather them I discovered an egg had been broken, there was a big stink and a few maggots crawling on the outside of my eggs. I threw everything into a garbage bag and put out for the trash, but not before one of my girls ate several of the maggots like they were the best thing ever. I am wondering what I should do if anything about this. Yes, I know I should have gathered eggs before there were 18 of them in the nesting box. Thank you.
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Oh man, sounds like you had quite the mess eh? Sorry to hear about the wasted egg.
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GLENDA HEYWOOD ANSWERED
I stand by my original statement the maggots are dangereous to healthy chickens.
Free roaming birds will eat most any thing.
but healthy well kept chickens should depend on what is safely fed to them
 

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