Maggot Bucket for the Feint of Heart

[ridgrats]

If any of you are holding off on the maggot feeding idea because of having to use dead, smelly, 'stuff' here's another, less odoriferous way. I've used black soldier fly larvae (maggots) for panfish bait for many years. I raise them myself in wet cornmeal or chicken feed. So if you're adverse to keeping our country beautiful by picking up roadkill and still want you're very own maggot feeder without the smell try it this way. Bucket is done the same way but just use a slurry of cornmeal/water or chicken feed pellets(mash)/water. Make it 'soupy' thick, not quite as thick as oatmeal. Hang it up and in about ten days you'll have your own squirming, writhing, mass of natural super chicken protein virtually free of charge. You may need to add a little more water to the mixture if it gets too dry before the process completes.

Enjoy, Rodney

 

[ashyannehand]

Thanks for the info. I might just try this way!

 

[icthus]

Be careful. There is a possibility you could produce botulism in the rotting grain. There is a link to an article in the "maggot" thread. It tells how he produces maggots only with dead animals.
He mentions a disease caller "rubberneck" (or something like that) which is caused by chickens eating maggots contaminated with botulism in rotting grain/feed.

 

[MissPrissy]

I am only saving vegetable matter for my maggot buck. Tomatoes, etc.

I don't want to hang meat or use grain.

 

[Wynette]

Miss P, I'm wondering how big the maggots are when using veggie scraps? Are they the really tiny ones and, if so, should the holes on the side of the bucket be toward the bottom of the bucket (assuming that if they're small, they won't crawl as far/high)? I may not be phrasing my question well -hopefully you'll know what I mean!!

 

[farmgirlie1031]

I'm sure it was not a good thing at all but my chickens found my "Trap and Toss" fly trap yesterday and were having tons of fun eating all the flies attracted to the trap before they entered the trap Now they are running around their pen trying to catch flies

I won't let them get near the trap again but I love that they have learned to love flies. Living on a hog farm in a major hog producing state there are tons and tons of flies. ick! A maggot bucket might or might not be a good thing around here. I'm not sure I want to attract anymore flies but at the same time maybe if I attract them and my chickens eat all the maggots there would be less flies. I don't know? I'm just sick of always seeing a fly in the house chasing it around with a fly swatter.

 

[MissPrissy]

I think they would be the same, Wynette. Fly blown rotten anything poduces maggots and I don't know that meat maggots grow any bigger/stronger than vegetable maggots.

 

[Wynette]

Thanks, MissP - maggot bucket is one of my little chicken projects for this weekend!

 

[1acrefarm]

I am having trouble getting used this this idea.

I feed my chickens most all manners of insects but even though I know it is natural the idea of my chickens eating fly larvae bothers me. I know it shouldn't bother me though.

 

[SandraMort]

OK, so once you rule out the meat as stinky and the grain as dangerous, it leaves fruit and vegetables? So you toss those into the bucket with the holes drilled all about and leave it open for the flies to lay eggs, then put it up and the maggots just fall out of the holes to feed the birds? Am I understanding this correctly?

I'm 39 years old and darnit, I will NOT let a maggot phobia keep me from a rich source of free protein.

OK, so once you hook these buckets up and the birds all go crazy and eat everything that falls out, how does it affect their feed consumption? Can they eat TOO many maggots?