here ya go...thanks for the reply...sorry for the sore hands!!haha
Well, I'm sure anything rotting would attract flies. I have never wondered about another bait and food source than the carcasses. Really anything that flies would lay eggs on would work. It wouldn't be hard for you to experiment with different baits to find one less....smelly.. Just remember that your chooks are eating whatever falls, so try to make sure nothing hazardous will fall where the chickens can get it. The buckets need to be hung, or sat on a hardwire cloth table, so the larvae fall down where the chickens can get them. If it turns out to be too smelly for your situation or non-satisfactory all you need to do is bury or throw away the bait/food and use bleach water on the bucket.
Mealworms are great, not free like the maggots, but still a cheap way for really good protein. If I remember correctly mealworms are 37% protein. I raise my mealworms in a large plastic storage tote. It sits out in the shed where is stays warm 80-100 degrees is when the worms do best. Put a few(3-5) inches of chick starter in the bottom of the tote. Pour on the worms. Then you put in stuff like apples, banana peels, lettuce, potatoes, in the bucket and the left over fruit and veggies act as a water source. Then when you get a sufficient number of worms, I just hand pick them and put them in a container to throw to the chickens. Chickens LOVE these things.. so if you have a shy or timid bird this is the way to win them over.. it's how I've tamed all my really flighty birds..
If you Google "raising mealworms" there are a ton of ways to raise them, this is just how I raise mine. The websites are great because they can give you the whole list of fruits and veggies that the worms can have as well as a whole list of types of bedding/food other than chickstarter you can use. Just make sure when you buy your mealworms not to get the Giant or Large size because those are often treated with a hormone that keeps them from mature, thus ruining your Mealworm "Farm".
-Kim
