MAKING USE OF EVERYTHING: TURNING UNFORTUNATE EVENTS INTO USEFUL OPPORTUNITIES - AKA "What to do With a Bucket of Maggots"
Farm life can be hard, and often it involves death.
I guess that life in general involves death, but on the farm it can happen a little more frequently. When a family living on a homestead harvests an animal for food, that is one thing, but other deaths happen too.
Whether it is disease, accidents, or an attack from a wild animal, livestock and pets may not exactly be around as long as people wish they would be. Recently, an animal killed a rooster and a chicken that my neighbors had. As it happened, they asked me if I wanted the dead animals.
MAKING USE OF EVERYTHING
Now, @papa-pepper is not exactly a collector of dead animals, but I actually had some uses for the dead chickens. Recently some raccoons or possums have been raiding chicken flocks in the area. We still have all ours, but one of the neighbors lost their entire flock. I am working on a raccoon trap made out of shopping carts, so I took one of the carcasses and loaded it in there.
As for the other dead chicken, @mama-pepper, who does most of our research, had shared a story with me about a video that she saw on YouTube. A homesteader put a dead animal into a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom. As the flies laid their eggs and the maggots hatched, they would drop out of the holes in the bottom and the chickens that were still alive would eat them. @mericanhomestead - Did you guys make a video like that?
Anyway, you wouldn't want to do that with an animal that died from disease, but I thought that I would try it with the remaining carcass.
Yup, the supply of maggots showed up pretty quickly. I was kind of amazed. Thankfully, they fell out of the bucket through the holes just fine too!
DINNER IS SERVED!
Everyone one of the chickens really liked this treat. They would sit there for very long periods of time just eating the maggots as they fell out of the bucket.
When I put the poultry away for the evening, I left the bucket up. In the morning, there was a long line of maggots on the ground. Thankfully, the chickens and muscovy ducks made their way over right away for breakfast, and quickly pecked them all up.
I fully understand that this may be my grossest post ever, but at least it allowed me to find some purpose for the dead animal. It was a creative and peculiar way to recycle the dead chicken, and it worked out very well. Sure it was a little strange, but it did work and my chickens and ducks were very happy about it.
Have any of you ever done anything like this? If not, would you?
My Short Video About It
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-bucket-of-maggots (I wasn't angry, the sun just made me squint)
Until next time…
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This post reminded of before we moved onto our boat, when we lived in an old irish cottage. We kept chickens and rabbits for food and as avid fishermen we always had to "breed" our own maggots for bait as there were no shops for miles around.
Needless to say, our hens had their share of these maggots also and would sit on the highest rail of our fence every morning where the bucket of maggots where kept, waiting til i came out and took the lid off. Once they saw the lid was off, it was bedlam almost to the point of fighting. They loved those maggots..
Hens are a funny bird too, great entertainment at times.
This is great, bucket full of maggots for chicken feeding. I remember when we would cut the grass we would take the clippings and put it in the chicken cages.
We actually had mobile cages that we moved from one spot to another every few days to a week. Depending on the season and weather.
Glad to see a happy Papa Pepper hope you have an awesome evening,
~ @Timbo
What a genius solution, mabye you could also use maggots to try to catch some fish!?
I thought of that, but I still prefer worms!
I remember reading an old copy (I mean old) of a magazine that suggested hanging a small piece of rancid meat by a string above the chicken feed.
Same principle without the bucket.
Maggots are an awesome source of FREE protein for your chickens and ducks.
BTW, Johnny Depp should play you in the movie of your life story.
Hey @papa-pepper how is the little pepper? You always inspire me and YOU inspired me to start posting here, you are doing very well and you deserve it. Nice post. :))
Our little one is excellent. Slept four hours straight the other night.
Thanks for your support and encouragement!
anytime papa and thanks for yours :)
Hey @papa-pepper,
You may find this book interesting: "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. It's a often brought up whenever children's sleep habits are discussed. I heard testimonials of children sleeping up to 20 hours a day. Tough to go to wrong for the $4 it will cost you on Amazon used.
Thanks! I'll let @mama-pepper know.
Yeaaaah no. Not watching that video! Lol!
I have read about that method of generating high protein chicken feed online years ago. I don't think I'd be on top of it enough to keep from generating huge clouds of new flies though.
Do you think you'll keep it up?
Now THAT is how recycling is done !
Nice post.
As a biologist, I found it very interesting.
Don't forget to tell us of how effective your racoon trap is !
Trust me, I'll keep you posted.
Waste not, want not! This is a creative way to find a use for something that many would see as garbage. Always important for creating sustainable farming/homesteading techniques. Those maggots are basically made of chicken though...so its just 1 step removed from cannibalism when other chickens eat them lol
One step away is enough. Lol.
You could also eat the maggots, but feeding them to the chickens and eating those seems a better way of going about things 8-).
Yeah, I've heard of that too. Haven't tried it yet, have you?
No. I thought it was useful information when I read it, but I prefer chicken 8-). I have eaten roasted grasshoppers, though. That also will never be a hobby of mine, but the taste was surprisingly good.
The closest I got to grasshopper, was the cricket flour muffins someone baked for church one day and only remembered to tell the consumers of the muffins after they were consumed.
How were they? 8-)
Actually not bad, I wouldn't want to eat them whole, but the flour was not bad.
I think I'll be trying crickets soon, but maggots only if I really need to, and not for fun...
Not to out-gross you, but I read you can mash them up a bit and bake them into an omelet. I am not going to try ...
I prefer the chicken-and-egg way.
Now that sounds great... just add a little pepper and some cheddar.
=D
I'll just have the cheddar.
if you get the travel channel watch andrew zimmern's bizarre foods program. as the title implies he eats some strange stuff all over the world. he's done a number of episodes about raising and/or consuming insects 😝
My grandfather used to feed maggots to the chickens. He would occasionally unleash the chickens to eat other bugs plaguing the crops.
Yeah, it is a good way to use them!