Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["art corbit" <art_c@cox.net>]

There is no way I would eat chicken of their eggs if they were fed maggots.
I just wouldn't have chickens at all if that was all I could afford to feed
them. Most families produce enough table scraps and other household waste to
feed a dozen or so hens. Chickens will eat just about anything. You can cook
potato peels a little and chickens will ear every bite of them. They will
eat about any kind of garden waste. You can easily grow a few rows of head
grain. Just cut the heads  and toss a few into the pen. Chickens love to
pick the grain off the heads. The old saying that "you are what you eat"
also applies to chickens.

Art in Arkansas


----- Original Message -----
From: "Harvey Ussery" <huboxwood@earthlink.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, July 21, 2006 12:29 PM
Subject: [Livingontheland] More on maggots: My system described


> The following is copied from an article I'm working on for Backyard
> Poultry, describing a bucket system for breeding fly maggots from
> carrion as a free source of high-quality protein for the homestead
> chicken flock. There is a reference to the page on the Journey to
> Forever that initially inspired my experiments. However, the system I
> have devised is my own. (Think I should patent?)
>
> ~Harvey
> www.themodernhomestead.us
>
> Please note that the following material is copyright by Harvey Ussery,
> July 2006, and is reproduced here for the benefit of members of this
> list only.
>
> *****************************
>
> Protein from Thin Air: Breeding fly maggots for poultry feed
>
> I was inspired to experiment with fly maggots for poultry feed by a
> ``recipe'' on the Journey to Forever site
> (http://journeytoforever.org/farm_poultry.html#flies), based on kichen
> rejects---cooking water, scraps, soured milk, etc. The batches produced
> did indeed generate maggots, but were not productive enough for my
> needs. Then I noticed references elsewhere on the Journey to Forever
> site to the practice in Europe in earlier times of fattening poultry on
> maggots from fish heads and chunks of scrap meat. Instantly I thought of
> my buddy Sam, and the carcasses generated by his ``nuisance trapping''
> service, and a new source of free protein on the homestead was born.
>
> Using food grade 5 and 7 gallon buckets I had on hand, I drilled
> numerous 3/8-inch holes in the bottoms, sides, and screw-on lids. (Holes
> of this size allow flies to enter, but prevent pecking by the chickens.)
> Sam keeps me supplied with 30-35 lb beaver carcasses. These I seal
> inside the buckets. After just a couple of days, the local bluebottle
> flies have ``blown'' the carcasses with their eggs, which have hatched
> into a mass of greedily feeding larvae, or maggots.
>
> Please note that for this system to work, it is essential that the
> buckets be suspended, either by hanging (from a tree or a rafter of a
> shelter) or by placing on a wire platform. When the larva has attained
> sufficient growth to pupate, it has the instinct to leave the feeding
> medium and burrow into the ground to pupate---it will not pupate in the
> feeding medium. By suspending the bucket, I ensure that the larvae will
> free-fall, attracting the attention of the ever-alert chickens, who
> instantly snap them up without fail.
>
> I have found the beaver carcasses from my friend to be tremendously
> productive. He also passes on the occasional raccoon, and I have even
> cycled the odd roadkill through my buckets. When I slaughter poultry for
> the table, I now run the offal through the buckets as well---a more
> efficient, and productive, way of disposing of them than burying. I even
> put in any domestic birds that died by accident, though of course do not
> use carcasses of birds who may have died of disease.
>
> No doubt the reader has anticipated potential problems with the use of
> carrion to breed maggots, so let's consider them.
>
> Odor: The first beaver Sam gave me I simply stuffed, whole, into my
> largest bucket. The bucket produced an abundance of maggots but, not
> surprisingly, smelled pretty ``ripe'' during the last few days of
> ``processing.'' I now have five working buckets, so I chop each beaver
> carcass into five pieces. I line the bottom of the buckets with litter
> from the poultry house (mostly oak leaves), lay in the beaver chunks,
> then pad with more leaves around and on top, and screw on the lids. (The
> loose leaves do not impede access to the carrion by the flies.) With
> this adjustment, I find that the processing time---the time from carrion
> addition until the maggots have rendered it to fur and bones---is
> greatly accelerated, and there is very little smell. Indeed, I catch a
> whiff only when I am working in the immediate vicinity of the buckets.
> (Suburban flock owners, however, would do well to seek free protein
> elsewhere.)
>
> Curiosity seekers: The buckets would certainly draw dogs, foxes,
> raccoons, and other curiosity seekers if allowed access to them.
> Therefore this system is useful only where access can be denied. I use
> electric net fencing [see my article on electronet in the April-May
> issue], and never have any problem with raids on the buckets. Placing
> the buckets inside permanent predator fencing would work as well. Only
> once have I had a visit from buzzards. They were drawn to that first
> heavily scented bucket. They hung around most of a day, clearly
> intoxicated by the heady aroma, but frustrated they could not get at its
> source. They finally gave up and lumbered into flight, never to return.
> I think the lack of repeat visits has much to do with the greatly
> reduced odor in the buckets these days.
>
> Breeding flies? Many people have objected to my system because it
> amounts to a deliberate breeding of flies. Actually, my methods should
> decrease the ambient fly population. Imagine there are 100 female flies
> in the vicinity, and I manage to convince them that my carrion buckets
> are the best place imaginable for laying their eggs. They do so (rather
> than laying them elsewhere). But not a single fly larva gets to pupate
> and hatch---my sharp-eyed chickens see to that. I've just reduced the
> local fly hatch by 20%.
>
> Disease: Naturally my reader, however dedicated to the ideal of
> self-sufficiency, will worry about the potential for generating disease
> out of carrion being worked by maggots. I am duty bound to pass on
> industrial-strength warnings I've received to that effect: There is a
> condition the old-timers called ``limberneck,'' which turns out to be
> paralysis caused by botulin poisoning. My friends who warned me about
> limberneck insisted that it could be caused by maggots ingested by
> chickens from any source. However, in all the links they sent, the
> references actually described the condition associated only with spilled
> feed which had become wet, had soured and begun working with maggots,
> and then been consumed by the birds. For that reason I have always
> avoided using a grain mash as a maggot breeding substrate. However, I
> fed carrion-bred fly larvae the entire fly season last year, and this
> season I have honestly lost track of the number of beaver carcasses I've
> put through my buckets---and I have not had a hint of a disease problem.
> Neither has my longtime mentor Joel Salatin, who follows beef cattle on
> his pastures with a big flock of laying hens, who scratch apart the
> cowpies for the maggots growing in them. Based on such solid experience,
> I conclude that the homestead flock owner does not need to fear disease
> if he chooses to tap into this rich source of free protein.
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