High-protein feed from thin air

Cyara

Was from a site for poultry feed...but going to try it this way for my fish.....

Quote:

Lots of flies around? Collect some kitchen slops -- cooking water and juices and leftovers from meat and fish dishes, some milk: anything that will go really putrid if you leave it for awhile. Then leave it for awhile. When it stinks really badly, gather some compost materials, say 4-5 cubic feet, spread it out in the sun, and sprinkle it with the putrid kitchen liquids. Don't get it too wet -- slightly more wet than compost should be.

In no time it'll be buzzing with flies. Leave it until you're quite sure lots of flies have had ample opportunity to lay their fill of eggs. Then scoop it all up, put it in a double garbage bag (one inside the other), put the bag in a suitably sized cardboard box, and close the bag lightly. It will soon stop smelling. Check it every day.

After a week or so, you'll open it to find the surface flat, finely divided, and writhing slightly, or even considerably, with maggots, lots and lots of maggots. Now's the time, don't leave them to turn into flies. Two options:

Option 1
Sift it with a circular gardener's sieve with a 3/16" mesh (stainless steel mesh is best). This will leave you with a pile of nice black compost and a sieve full of maggots -- first-class poultry feed. Your chickens, ducks, guinea fowl will think it's Christmas. The geese, who're strict vegetarians, will be appalled and disgusted by the whole thing, but never mind. Add the siftings to the compost bin or the worm bin. Maggots, by the way, assist rather than hinder the composting process. And, disgusting as they may look, fly maggots do not spread disease.

Option 2
Let the birds do the sifting for you -- but don't throw it onto their bedding or the mulch in their run because they'll miss a few maggots, leaving them to hatch into flies. On bare ground, they'll definitely get them all.

You've just wiped out a generation of flies.

Instead of using liquids, you can let a couple of litres of kitchen scraps get thoroughly putrid in a bucket with a lid on it and use that instead.

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_poultry.html#labour

jessy

Dear Chelle,

I did something simular at the start of my system....sweated out a leg of roo, or bullock.... been a while now

The maggots just dropped into the water....

It stunk, but worked for the purpose..

Maggot breeding is not new....just a pain in the arse , when your not trying to breed them.

A friend of mine put too much blood and bone into her garden, and walah.....maggots, and no tomato's .. :colors:

Cyara

Nice application Jess.

Why do extra effort if nature will take care of it.

I saw a bucket for sale once in the States specially designed with ramps up from the bottom feeding station to holes in the sides. The maggots instictively moved up the ramp when ready to metamorphose and tipped into the pond. Bet the fish learned to wait for them!

Here is another idea someone had.... really getting into this maggot thing. New use for thr feezer!

Quote:

One of the easiest ways to breed maggots is to pierce 5mm holes in the lid of a tin of pet food and put it outside. After at least five days, remove the lid, tip it into a bucket of water and strain it through fly wire to get the maggots. Rinse the maggots in running water for 15 minutes to release the contents of their intestine. This will prevent bacteria being passed on to your animal. You can store maggots in a jar of flour in the freezer until you are ready to use them.

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/nature_conser ... ive_foods/

BatonRouge Bill

I definitely perfer the Black soldier larva over the common blow flies larva. Can still have backyard barbeque's with out the flies or smell.

Cyara

I agree. I've read about them BRB. No disease is spread. Pretty neat. But they don't just fly in here.

What really attracted me to that original compost method I posted was that around a farm you nail a few generations of pests sealed up in the bags and cardboard box to keep in the stink and then sieve out and feed to stock or fish. All free "out of the air". Truly sustainable wherever you are. No need to import BSF if don't have it locally.

And can even store them in flour in the freezer for whenever.

About the BBQ without flies... just keep muscovy ducks.

Quote:

If you keep Muscovy ducks (you should!) there might not be enough flies around to make a boxful of maggots for you.

A Canadian study of fly controls with dairy calves found that Muscovies caught 30 times more houseflies than commercial flytraps, baits or flypaper. The ducks also ate spilled feed so flies couldn't breed in it.

The Heifer Project Exchange quotes a development worker in Togo in Africa reporting that the local people were not bothered by flies because their Muscovy ducks killed them all. They slaughtered some ducks, opened the crops to see what they'd eaten, and each one was filled with hundreds of flies. (ECHO)

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_poultry.html#labour

Chappo

There are some good , no smell growing container designs out there for "gents" , maggots are referred to as gents when talking bait for fishing ..... from memory keeping them in bran was preferred. A less messy , kid friendly alternative may be silk-worms.

Cyara

Fish will eat silkworms? I suppose why not... are worms. Interesting idea. Just need mulberry leaves.

Chappo

And if you choose , you can wait until the silk-worm is in its cocoon , the protein is fdar more concentrated. This is the stage they are eaten by people in North eastern Thailand.

Geoff2222

A relatively clean and non smelly way to grow them is using chinese take away containers with a few holes punched in the lid. Fill with one or two slices of white bread and soak with water and baby formulae mixture. A new one can be made everyday so you have a daily supply. To harvest simply place mixture with maggots into a seive and hose out leaving behind the maggots. Place them in bran for a few hours to purge and then feed to the fish.

I used to feed these to my Cichlids and never had any problems. A friend of mine also uses this method to provide maggots for his finches. He has the containers inside an old fridge with the door removed and a screen over the front to keep the breeding flies in.

Cyara

Chappo wrote:

And if you choose , you can wait until the silk-worm is in its cocoon , the protein is fdar more concentrated. This is the stage they are eaten by people in North eastern Thailand.

That is an interesting idea. I want to learn to use the silk anyway. How would you do this... do you know Chappo? I mean using both the pupae and the silk without damaging either.

Geoff2222 wrote:

A relatively clean and non smelly way to grow them is using chinese take away containers with a few holes punched in the lid.

That sounds real easy and convenient Geoff. You mean those polystyrene containers? Do the maggots eat the bran? Must I grind it a bit fine?

Chappo

You take the silk when the Pupae has formed and before the butterfly breaks it's way out ..... so you can have your silk and eat your pupae ,,LOL.
Also you don't have to worry about escaping bugs ,, silk-worms have been in captivity for so long they are no longer able to live in the wild.

Cyara

How do you find that first thread?

Geoff2222

"That sounds real easy and convenient Geoff. You mean those polystyrene containers? Do the maggots eat the bran? Must I grind it a bit fine?"

The containers aren't polystyrene. They are food containers approximately 20cm by 10 cm by 5 cm high. Any small plastic container will work fine. The maggots do eat some of the bran, but they aren't in the bran for very long. Just long enough to move through and clean themselves off. No need to grind it any finer. Let me know if you try it and how it goes.

Cheers....Geoff

Cyara

Neat! Pity we going into winter. My fish are hardly eating now. But definitley going to try this way. Thanks Geoff.

johnnie7au

Just an idea .. free food ...

The grapevines are now going into dormancy in perth and leaves are shrivelling up and dropping off.

I feed my fish yesterday with the dry leaves and they seemed to take it with gusto.

I was wondering if anyone else had tried grape leaves, mulberry leaves and other edible leaves from deciduous trees.

Also I remember groundbaiting a lake in the UK as a young angler, we used wild elderberries to attract Europen perch to our fishing spot.

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High-protein feed from thin air

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A place to discuss aquaponics