Pages

▼

State of the art technology - Maggot grower tin

Maggot grower tin
Chickens need a great deal of protein to produce nutritious eggs. Where does this protein comes from? A small proportion from grains and the biggest amount from insects, bugs and worms which chickens find in the garden. But how about providing chooks with a constant supply of protein? We came up with a solution - growing maggots from meat scraps, in a tin. Basically, find a tin  (we used a 4litre olive oil  tin) and punch holes all around including the bottom with a screwdriver. Partially cut the top off the lid to make the tin operable. We put meat scraps from the kitchen and local butcher into the tin. Flies get in and lay eggs and in a couple of days, the meat scraps are full of maggots. As they crawl around, they, every now and again drop and fall through the holes into the chook run and the chooks feast on them. This process will last for a few weeks. When meat scraps are exhausted and maggots eaten by the chooks, empty the tin and start again. We do this every few weeks, providing chickens with a continuous supply of protein - maggots. More importantly, we are reducing meat scrap waste which would otherwise go to landfill. This state of the art technology maggot tin grower, is free, so effective and works amazingly well.
Maggots dropping from tin are a treat for chooks

Bones for growing maggots

2 comments:

  1. georgi_girlMay 17, 2015 at 7:14 PM

    Hi Roman and Jana, what a lovely blog you have. I also rent and have been able to grow my own fruit, veges, chooks and bees. Your tips are fabulous. I am wondering about the maggot grower, does it smell much? We had a catcher for flies on the back porch, and the smell was absolutely vile. Interested in the extra protein though

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SpurTopiaMay 29, 2015 at 11:42 AM

      Hi, thank you for your comment. We are using bones with a bit of meat on them.We get them free from a local butcher and it does not really smell. Once we put into a tin fish head and that was not a good idea - too smelly.
      If you want completely smell-less way to grow maggots get coffee grounds from a local coffee shop, we get about 20 kg bag a day, and leave the bag or bucket open outside so it get wet when it's raining. After a few weeks it's full of soldier fly maggots without any smell. So we tip coffee grounds to chook run they have a maggot feast and coffee grounds get composted and we put them after while in the garden. Hope this helps.

      Delete