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 think they just drilled 3/8" holes.

[Chris Duke]

I would just experiment with the hole drilling. I saw one guy drill them all over the bucket (for ventilation). May as well bring out the shotgun and have some fun with some 000 Buck haha. Another guy (who had the attitude that his way was the only way to do it) insisted on only putting them in the lid and on the bottom.

[Phil]

my thought was to perhaps flip the bucket over and use some not too fine mesh...maybe 1/4 - 1/2" square...big enough for flies to get in and the maggots to fall through but not the meat or straw.

As far as ventilation, that snake I left in the sun was in a tightly sealed, clean 5 gallon bucket and it was covered in maggots in a matter of days..not sure how they got there..but they don't seem to need much of a hole to get in...nor did they much care that there was no ventilation.. so I'm guessing one way is a good as another.

I'll set it up tomorrow or wednesday and report back on how it works..hopefully with some pictures, by next week.

[Chris Duke]

You also may want to search youtube for "How To Grow Worms, Meal worms, and Crickets, for other fish supplements. The worms could be grown outdoors in a bin, the meal worms could be grown in the garage, and crickets I would want to keep outside in a shed.

Also good for your chickens.

[Chris Duke]

Cool. I'm interested in finding out how many a small chunk of meat will produce. The old dumpster out back had hundreds of them falling out and inching across the driveway.My neighbors must be very wasteful with their meat haha. That's always been a pet peeve with me. Even the chub gets eaten around here by the cats. Even all the pork and chicken fat gets rendered and canned for future use. Ever make a chicken pot pie crust using real rendered chicken fat instead of lard or shortening? Man, it's the best! More chicken flavor per inch.

Phil said:

my thought was to perhaps flip the bucket over and use some not too fine mesh...maybe 1/4 - 1/2" square...big enough for flies to get in and the maggots to fall through but not the meat or straw.

As far as ventilation, that snake I left in the sun was in a tightly sealed, clean 5 gallon bucket and it was covered in maggots in a matter of days..not sure how they got there..but they don't seem to need much of a hole to get in...nor did they much care that there was no ventilation.. so I'm guessing one way is a good as another.

I'll set it up tomorrow or wednesday and report back on how it works..hopefully with some pictures, by next week.

[Phil]

Will try the chicken pot pie.  We did render the lard from the hog and made some awesome cinnamon rolls.  Had another though..I'm raising rabbits..I wonder, since maggots only eat dead meat if laying the skins out in such an arrangement would help clean them off?  Haven't looked in preserving the hides yet but might be a good way to put the buggers to work before I feed em to the fish.

I'll update you on how this all works once I get it set up.

[Phil]

got a worm farm in process using nested bins.  same process. bottom bin with newspaper, food scraps and worms.  then put  top bin, with holes in the bottom in the first one. with the same

worms eat the stuff in the bottom then crawl up top and the castings fall through the holes.  great stuff for fertilizer..  I have a variety of fertilizers..horse, chicken, worms and rabbit poop...all composted separately then mixed with the general compost. as I plant.