convert rancid meat to excellent chicken feed - with maggots!

[paul wheaton]

I held off a day on uploading this. Talking about feeding maggots to chickens didn't seem appropriate for christmas day.

http://www.youtube.com/paulwheaton12#p/u/0/RXWbBC1kQ24

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

oh heck, Paul - anytime is a good time to talk about free chicken feed!

and wow - what a great idea for the "dropped dead meaties"...humm....

dont know if you have any info on this, but i thought i read somewhere (Paul Ussery??) that he used to use meat for worm-feed.. but then he stopped. i cant remember what the details were.. but have you every had problems?

also - off topic

someone i know recommended your site to me! how funny is that? or should i say small world. keep up the great work!

 

[big brown horse]

Fantastic idea! Thanks for sharing.

 

[patandchickens]

dont know if you have any info on this, but i thought i read somewhere (Paul Ussery??) that he used to use meat for worm-feed.. but then he stopped. i cant remember what the details were.. but have you every had problems?

Harvey Ussery started losing birds to botulism which he believed was from the rotting carcasses he was using to farm up the maggots.

If Ussery won't do it, I sure am not inclined to try it (given that he has a much more free-wheeling let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may philosophy of risk tolerance for poultry than I do).

Of course anyone can do as they please

Pat

 

[tortoise]

Botulism theory doesn't make sense. Botulism is anaerobic. So if the inedible carcass or meat is otherwise fine... it should be fine, right?

I think it is a clever idea and if I had birds, I might have to try it!

 

[Dooley]

I saw a thread like this on BYC once. Lots of people do it, apparently. How would you deal with the smell?

 

[patandchickens]

Botulism theory doesn't make sense. Botulism is anaerobic. So if the inedible carcass or meat is otherwise fine... it should be fine, right?

No. Carcasses are a pretty common source of botulism infection in animals. As they rot, the inner bits can get anaerobic and culture up the organism. Ussery's theory is that the maggots then get in there and bring it out where chickens can eat it.

I have no proof whether or not he is right about his chickens dying this way but certainly similar things happen in other circumstances (e.g. dead animal carcasses in big free-choice-fed bales of hay are the main reason why feeding roundbales increases chances of botulism problems in horses)

Pat

 

[lwheelr]

We decided not to do this, for two reasons:

1. We didn't want to increase the chance of culturing flies. They are pretty bad here in the fall anyway. And even if you do it the recommended way, you still risk that.

2. We didn't want to attract some unpleasant predators. Yeah, I know, the poultry smells anyway, but rotting meat attracts a different sort than poultry smells.

We decided to go for Black Soldier Fly Larvae come spring, and use that alongside Vermiculture to supply the poultry with goodies.