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I just learned a little about a self feeding non plant protien. The way it works is you take a 5 gal bucket drill holes in the bottom and part way up the sides. I think they say 3/8" holes. Add meat scraps and hang it about 2' off the ground in your run. Now the idea is that flies will go in lay eggs which will turn to maggots. The maggots will go down and when they fall out bingo chicken treats. They say that if there are 100 flies 20 of them will go in. This means that you have basically reduced the fly population by 20% and yer chickens get goodies too!!!!
That sounds like and idea. Do the flies need to go in the top or can they go through the holes in the bottom? Otherwise I think with out a lid it could get pretty stinky. Maybe it would work to put a thin layer of soil or compost over the meat. Hey that gives me an idea. Could clean horse pens and dump the manure in the chicken pens before putting it in the compost. They could pick out the fly eggs. Oh, that would mean I will need to shovel twice. Might try the maggot bucket, would that only work in fly season? Are there flies this time of year? They have to go somewhere don't they? If they all died in the winter how do they show up in the spring? Thats a question for Illia!
I have put my question out to other threads and have read some interesting feeds. One is Farmers helper Ultra Kibble but supposedly it has to be ordered from the mid west. Have no idea whats in it though. The other is Mazuri game bird which supposedly can be ordered thru a feed store that carries Purina. Gonna have to google those. The word Mazuri brings to mind when I worked at the San Diego Wild Animal park we raised a tiger cub named Mazuri which got me to thinking about the biscuits we used to feed them. The name escapes me. Remember the primates were fed Monkey Chow. Anywho, I'll bet those biscuits we fed the big cats had a meat source of protein. Gonna do some googling.
