The Disadvantage of letting chickens Eat Maggots

[Riven]

I guess I'm a firm believer in you are what you eat. Maggots eat dead rotting things.

I raise chinchillas and I just love the phrase " in the wild ". Firstly most of us are not dealing with wild chickens, we have domesticated chickens. "In the wild" chickens are not pure breed, they are not Sussex, they are not cochin, they are not lemon blue, they are not a lot of things... Most domesticated chickens would not survive in the wild due to many factors that come with selective breeding from color to lack of skills and lack of resistance to various things.

If left in a house of fruit and junk food, most children/teens would eat the junk food, since that's what they would do " in the wild " should we let them?

 

[threehorses]

Riven you tickle me. I have parrots and we also hear that argument a lot, too. "In the wild..." but in the wild our parrots would be flying almost all day from place to place to forage. Let to my parrots' own, they would certainly devour a bag of cheetos and leave vegetables alone.

My ducks certainly loved maggots when they found some (in mud). And it certainly did kill one horribly, and leave the others half dead. Thank heavens for MSU's advice on flushes and the internet!

I wouldn't wish that on my enemy, that experience. I'm really appalled that someone would recommend it over home-cultivation of more clean protein sources.

 

[rainbowgardens]

I forgot about this thread.

Harvey Ussery posted on his website that he has been having problems with his chickens because of the maggot buckets he uses.
I'm glad I never gave it a try. I decided not too because I was afraid it would attract preditors to my free-ranging birds.
But... I have been scooping what I think are maggots out of the compost bin to give to them.

 

[jrabbit]

Quote:
I'd bet money that those were grubs. very different from maggots.

 

[twentynine]

Years ago when I raised chickens and rabbits. I would get maggots in the rabbit manure under their cages. At that time the chickens were free ranged and they could have gotten under the rabbit cages at any time. They never went after the maggots.

 

[threehorses]

Speaking of natural proteins..

I really have been considering raising mealy worms. I know earthworms can be intermediate hosts of parasites, as can some beetles. BUt I'm thinking that since mealies are supposed to be VERY easy to raise, and you can raise them very clean media, why not raise some? I know the birds would love it, I'd love to have a nice source of bugs that I can 'treat' my birds without worrying about intermediate parasites (and still watch them have fun 'hunting' them - unlike just meat), etc.

Anyone ever done this?

By the way, a lot of 'maggots' that are found at the bait stores are (I believe?) not maggots but larvae of other types of bugs. We have a lot of similar things for reptiles (I had a box turtle).

 

[Lady_Cluck]

Quote:
Oh boy, I had rabbits years ago too, and the chickens (they were also free range) went crazy for the maggots under the rabbit cages. (There were always a few nasty maggots in the summer no matter how often I cleaned the rabbit manure!) I never stopped the chickens because they loved the maggots and I figured it would reduce the fly population.

Luckily I never had any problems, and I'm glad! I don't have any rabbits any more.

Thank you for the information!!!

 

[nightowl223]

So is the consensus here that feeding them *any* kind of maggot is a no-no? I've been reading up on this subject

, wanting a good source of free protein for my gals and guys, and have found a lot of support for soldier fly maggots on other sites. Now I'm more than a little confused.

My gals have only just started laying, and aside from giving them a calcium source, I would really like to give them a good protein source...

 

[galanie]

Black soldier fly larvae have something in their gut that kills disease pathogens. They are not the risk of disease that normal housefly type maggots are. In fact they look nothing at all like them either. Other than Black Soldier Fly larvae, anything that feeds on rotted meat can reasonably be considered a risk.

 

[nightowl223]

Hmmm... now that I think about it, not sure I would know how to only "grow" the one safe type, though.

Are there maggots that only feed on vegetable matter, and, if so, would those be safe?