Feeding your fish maggots.

[Chris Duke]

I was doing some research on how to grow things for my chickens and fish to eat the other night and came across this neat idea.

http://youtu.be/GeLpSxWMpIE

Basically what you do is poke holes in the bottom and top of a bucket, add some sticks and leaves on the bottom, then add some scrap meat and another layer of twigs and leaves, put the lid on and hang it in a tree. I got the idea, why not just hang the bucket over your fish pond? You could just do away with the collection bucket under the main bucket then. Just let them fall into the pond for fish snacks

[Chris Duke]

I also plan on farming a bunch of meal worms and crickets along with regular earth worms to add to the fish and chickens diets.

[Alex Veidel]

Sounds like a good idea to me; give it a try! Just keep it outdoors :/

Have you considered black soldier fly larva?

[Chris Duke]

Yes, but whatever comes around is fine by me. So long as they drop out of the buckets lol. Don't want to actually raise flies.

[Robert C. Wood]

Aren't you worried about the pathogens that would drip out of the bucket as the meat rots?

[Chris Duke]

From all the video's I watched it seems that only if you use some poor quality scrap, and a lot of it would it decompose enough to drip. I don't think that in an outdoor pond it would make a big difference anyway, but the idea is to put enough leaves and twigs on the bottom of the bucket to soak up any nasty drips. After the maggots ate all the meat and broke it down you could even throw what remains on a compost heap. It shouldn't attract any more flies at that point. Or add it to your worm compost.

[Jeff S]

Would this provide a substantial amount of fish food or is it just a small supplement?

 

[Chris Duke]

I would only consider it as a supplement. I don't believe that just one bucket would allow you to alter their feeding schedule.

At the apartments I'm at, (not much longer) they had a old trash dumpster out by my garage. They have a new one now, but for a while every night in the summer time after it started cooling down, the maggots would drop out the bottom of the trash can and do a maggot march across the driveway. It was disgusting. It was amazing how many maggots dropped down out of that trash dumpster every night. If you had a bucket that size hanging over your pond, I think you could easily skip the evening and probably even the morning feedings of fish food.

[Phil]

I like this idea.  Not sure the rancid meat would go over so well inside the greenhouse, but I have have chickens who work my compost heap.  Matter of fact those trailer loads of horse manure always have a generous supply of tiny red maggots down in the bottom.

I could just hang it from the frame that holds the netting over the top of the run.  And another with a collector for the fish.

[Chris Duke]

I think for the chickens you would need to use the collector bucket underneath. The maggots would probably only drop out at night when your chickens are locked up sleeping. Would make a nice daily addition to their breakfast.

[Phil]

hmmm...good point.  since the run is out in the garden the FT is in the greenhouse I was going to have 2 bucket..with collectors on both and then just grab one when I feed the chickens and swap the collectors...

Wish I'd known about this when we tossed the offal from the hog we slaughtered last week.  Fed the coyotes..could have frozen it for this and had plenty.  Oh well..I'll use the waste next time I butcher a chicken...

Killed a snake in the henhouse last summer and had it in a bucket in the sun ...just didn't get around to tossing it and left it in the driveway.  By the time I dumped it it was infested..and also reeking so bad I had to throw out the bucket...lol. 

[Chris Duke]

The guts would probably liquify and drip into your collection bucket. On one of the video's I think someone said to only use muscle meat to prevent this from happening.

[Phil]

Good point. but there was lots of sinew and other stuff from the hog that would have been usable.  For now I just found some suspect roast beef in the fridge...or is it just my enthusiasm for this idea that has it looking a bit gray? ;)

Did they show how big the holes needed to be?