HUGE bag of chicken treats from asian restaurant - happy & scared

[OrpingtonManor]

my girls don't get that excited about lettuce either. However, any version of cabbage sends them into conniptions.

Too many flies? You can always vacuum them up.

On the other hand, if you find yourself with a frightening pile of maggots, pouring pot of boiling water on them will take care of the problem. Of course, it might kill the flora in the compost, too.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Thanks Steffanie. I'll wait to hear back from my friend and unless he says that the BSFLs will take over I may just scoop up the top layer of stuff and dump in a vat of boiling water.

 

[fldiver97]

Quote:
How about uing gwen's idea...?? Pour a little Italian Dressing on the maggots and let the chickens feast on that.....

Sorry, just had another silly spasm.....

 

[geedub]

Heya Nifty,

Interesting experiment you've got going there.

The meat scraps spent a day or two outside of the bins, correct? In that case house flies would have had ample opportunity to deposit eggs on it. House fly larvae hatch and develop much more quickly than black soldier fly larvae so you could be seeing them a day or two later after moving the scraps into your bins.

It sounds like you have a dense enough BSF colony to see the repellent effect, but it would only work inside of the bin. If you don't see more than one or two house flies inside the bin then you either have BSF larvae or house fly larvae that were imported on the meat scraps, or both.

If the tiny larvae are BSF then they were probably laid from one to two weeks ago depending on how tiny they are, your average temperature, etc. Did you have any attractive food scraps in the bin at that time?

1) BSF larvae have ribbed bodies whereas most other fly larvae are smooth. Of course BSF larvae will grow much larger than house fly larvae in a week or two.

Also, any house fly larvae will pupate in just a few days so any that are present for longer probably aren't HF.

2) I don't think there would be any interaction between the larvae of the two species. I'm pretty sure fly larvae don't "think" about anything but eating so if it's not edible to them it's of no interest. I doubt that either larvae would/could eat the other.

I don't recommend leaving meat in the bin for more than a day if it started out relatively fresh and not at all if it was already stinky bad. You can produce some nasty bacteria with old meat and since you're feeding the larvae to your chickens it isn't worth the risk.


EDIT: It looks like you decided that they're HF after all. Not sure what to do about that.... I don't have any recipes or anything for HF larvae.

 

[rstampa]

Quote:
Another suggestion is. I dust my compose with Datamations Earth. Keeps the flies away and won't hurt your compose. I use the Datamations earth everywhere. In the coop in the run and yes in their feed. It's like a wonder drug. Natural and safe. Kill all kinds of insects and caterpillars, and stomach worms to.

 

[canada-goose]

Quote:
Another suggestion is. I dust my compose with Datamations Earth. Keeps the flies away and won't hurt your compost. I use the Datamations earth everywhere. In the coop in the run and yes in their feed. It's like a wonder drug. Natural and safe. Kill all kinds of insects and caterpillars, and stomach worms to.

I THINK that's diatomaceous earth. I've heard good and bad things about it. I could be wrong but I get worried when I hear the phrase "wonder drug".

 

[OrpingtonManor]

I learned about the boiling water thing when I had a deer carcass in my yard for over two weeks before AC would come pick it up. Once they did, (yuck!) they left me with thousands of maggots. I shuddered at the anticipation of that many flies, so did a little research. Boiling them seemed to be the answer, but I didn't want them in one of my good pots. Instead, I just boiled about 3 gallons of water, and carefully carried the pot across the yard, dumping it all over the maggots. The effect was immediate. Dead maggots, no flies.

 

[rstampa]

Another suggestion is. I dust my compose with Datamations Earth. Keeps the flies away and won't hurt your compost. I use the Datamations earth everywhere. In the coop in the run and yes in their feed. It's like a wonder drug. Natural and safe. Kill all kinds of insects and caterpillars, and stomach worms to.

THINK that's diatomaceous earth. I've heard good and bad things about it. I could be wrong but I get worried when I hear the phrase "wonder drug".

Thank you for pointing that out. My spell check thought I ment something else and made the correction. So I never payed attection to the correction. I hate miss spelled words. And don't worry yourself. The wonder drug was just my expression on how I thought about the Diatomaceous Earth. Sorry! if it got you upset. Again thank you!
Have a great weekend

 

[rstampa]

I THINK that's diatomaceous earth. I've heard good and bad things about it. I could be wrong but I get worried when I hear the phrase "wonder drug".

I have a question for you. What are the bad things about it. I've haven't heard of any. Just to let you know, I use the food quality mix.​

 

[canada-goose]

I read that it MAY cause breathing problems. I have never used the stuff so I am not sure. Hopefully I'm wrong.
And food quality is said to be better than other kinds.