~ Please check out on Harvey’s blog the latest on this strategy ~
~ A Crucially Important Advisory to the Reader ~
Harvey Ussery's maggot breeding chambers for free protein
Harvey Ussery continues to innovate and add value for all sustainable chicken enthusiasts. The following article originally appeared in Backyard Poultry magazine and is now available online at his website www.TheModernHomestead.us. Some might find this post a little too “ripe” for their tastes, please remember that an open mind is the least expensive path to profitable change!
The article Protein from Thin Air: Breeding Fly Maggots for Poultry Feed is classic Harvey Ussery: practical, innovative, well written, and based on the author’s actual useful experience. He describes his practice of turning trapped beavers (from a neighbor) and roadkill into maggots that chickens love to eat. The carcasses are suspended in 5-gallon buckets within the chicken coop, nested between beds of leaves and litter. Flies find the roadkill carcasses, lay their eggs, and as the maggots mature they burrow downward and out the bottom of the suspended 5-gallon buckets (Harvey has drilled holes so they can escape). The chickens gobble the maggots as they fall. Easy, inexpensive, local and sustainable, it’s a beautiful system.
In the article Harvey discusses the various objections, from smell and odor to disease and handling varmints who might be attracted to the carcass. This strategy is probably only applicable to larger properties in our county, but is exactly the type of strategy I think we’ll need more of as we reduce the amount of purchased feed required for our chickens.
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