The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[RedRidge]

Here is what our large bin was designed after

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Posting this here as an inspiration to be practice good management with maggot farms if you choose to take advantage of the "free" protein produced that way ... one popular source has amended his article on how to farm maggots at this link: http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/feeding-chickens-maggots.html He writes: "Please be advised that, despite what is said below about the chances for disease with this system, and despite the fact that I have used it successfully for years, I have recently indeed had problems—including deaths of several chickens—that probably resulted from “limberneck”—that is, botulism poisoning."

I've read in another forum (http://thebiopod.com/forum/index.php?topic=112.0) that "Fly larvae (maggots) which have matured on infected bird carcasses can be highly toxic. Due to this toxin, as few as five larvae (typically from "fresh flies") who have eaten dead fowl, can cause botulism in an adult duck who eats them."

No, I don't have a link to science on that. But to balance out that "bad news," the same page where I found that quote had a link to an research summary on the uses of BSF in feeding livestock which suggests BSF can help reduce salmonella and e coli in poultry manure (I presume this means when the poultry manure is used as feed for other livestock, but honestly I didn't read it that carefully). http://www.extension.org/pages/1505...-to-fish-meal-and-fish-oil/print#.Ut6aQiitsy4

 

[Scott H]

No more dried meal worms for me......

 

[RedRidge]

Please note that Black Soldier Flies are very different from other flies.
Please don't get the confused with regular fly maggots.
As a matter of fact they will even keep your house flies at bay. But as an adult fly they don't even have a mouth and live for only 24 hrs, just long enough to lay a clutch of eggs again.
While they will compost almost anything, you do want to be careful not to feed them certain things if you will be using them for poultry food.

 

[Leahs Mom]

No, I don't have a link to science on that. But to balance out that "bad news," the same page where I found that quote had a link to an research summary on the uses of BSF in feeding livestock which suggests BSF can help reduce salmonella and e coli in poultry manure (I presume this means when the poultry manure is used as feed for other livestock, but honestly I didn't read it that carefully). http://www.extension.org/pages/1505...-to-fish-meal-and-fish-oil/print#.Ut6aQiitsy4

Just to be perfectly clear on this...

The maggots were raised on dead bodies of raccoons or other road kill.

The BSF are raised in a compost bin of vegetable materials.

So...BSF don't compare to the bad maggot problem.

 

[aoxa]

No more dried meal worms for me......

I hope you never had any in the first place..

 

[armorfirelady]

Toast 10 degrees here today. Girls ventured out enough to go to their old run to stand around. They are do venture outside to yell at me when I feed them. I threw some boss & cracked corn down in the coop and the old run so they could scratch up the litter some. I am guessing Stella was a little to greedy. I just went out there and found her like this

I didn't clean her up. Pointless since the moisture will just freeze instantly with the temps & I don't want to cause frostbite. And I don't dare bring her in the house where its 74. I fear she would never want to leave so I will just watch her and make sure it doesn't look infected. They have had basil and garlic several times this week so her immune system should be just fine. She has a little blood on a toe where it must of dripped but I am guessing the blood froze shortly after it happened. I am thinking the big girls must of finally put her in her place when it comes to eating. Lol

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
As soon as my step-grandson saw that we had dried mealworms, he asked if he could eat some.

When he was in Seattle, they talked in school about how some cultures eat them and bbq'd some in class...anyone that wanted to volunteer could taste them and he did.

Then he ate some of the dried ones right before my eyes!

(He did save some for the "kiddos" though.)

 

[lazy gardener]

Interesting. Today, I watched my Alpha chicken get her comb bloodied a bit in a squabble with #2 over some sprouts. NO ONE has EVER challenged Alpha RIR! I'm guessing that the cold weather and confinement has gotten them fed up! Up to 45 degrees in their sun room, all the way up to 9.3 and windy outside.

 

[armorfirelady]

Here are my sprouts after 5 days. Everything started to sprout even the flax seed.
The top pic is a close up of everything that sprouted.
The 2nd pic everything that was in the quart canning jar.
The last pic is my lid and the plastic insert for draining. I had a piece of plastic divider I cut to fit the lid than drilled holes in It. LM pic of the plastic lid she has inspired me. It drains fine but I have to take the lid off to fill with water to rinse it. I am going to try bird seed next and see how it sprouts.

I just took some out to the girls and they seem to approve