Larvae in old chicken poop. What are they?

[bcboy]

I was scrapping poo off of the window sill and notices these larvae in the center of the old crusty poop. It's going to be a big picture.

Have you seen these before? What could they be?
Thanks for your time.

 

[Veer67]

They look like fly larvae (maggots) which would make sense because flies are attracted to chicken poop, well poop in general.

http://www.arkive.org/house-fly/musca-domestica/image-A6960.html

 

[farmtotable]

Yup, I'm thinking those are maggots. I found those once in a big poop pile in my coop once too. Shortly afterward I cleaned the entire thing top to the bottom. Gross. After that, I started sprinkling diatomaceous earth (DE) on all the coop surfaces. Haven't had a problem with them since. I got it in a 50 lb bag at my feed store for like $15. You just have to make sure you get the food grade kind, NOT the kind that is made for use in pools. I have no idea how it is used in pools, I just know it's bad for the chickens. But then again, I would never use anything that isn't food grade, since I eat the eggs!

 

[aart]

Could be any one a thousand varieties of insect larvae, put some in a mesh topped jar and see what develops...sorry, I'm a science experiment kind of folk.

...or give them to the chooks, they'll eat them up!

Zeolite, brand name Sweet PDZ, will dry the poop to discourage insects laying eggs in poop...it will also reduce ammonia odor.

DE will kill beneficial insects too, so you may not want to go that route.

 

[ShinShien]

Those same larvae, and some others* are in my compost heap: pine shaving, chicken poop, horse biscuits, nanny berries, kitchen scraps, etc...

What can I do? It's too big to spread PDZ all over it. Should I just let the larvae do their job and break it down?