breeding flys ( you know ) maggots, on purpose...

[Magnum Man]

talking house / farm flys... anyone following my threads, knows I've been really busy lately, but with the warmer than normal temps, I took today to do a few things outside, around the farm... including burning some garbage... we still recycle, feed wet organic to the pigs, but still accumulate some burnable trash... one issue is we don't accumulate a lot, so I burn, when the cans get full... often there is "fly larvae" on the white trash bags... some of which I saw today... this made me think about trash bag fly larvae harvesting... I know Bug Bites uses black soldier fly larvae... I don't know why house or farm flys would be different than soldier flys... if clean bags were used, and the best ( stinky enough, yet clean food wise )choice for fly food ( open for suggestions there ) I would think fresh fly larvae would be better than dried... thoughts or discussion???

 

[GaryE]

My understanding is they're very different from soldier fly larvae, which are calcium rich. Farm fly maggots are very fatty. I imagine they're decent food, it's more that they are unpleasant to cultivate. White worms are also fatty, but fed once or twice a week are excellent to condition fish for breeding.

Soldier flies have a very different nutritional profile, but fatty foods in careful small quantities are okay. What really goes down well is ant larvae...

 

[fishorama]

I wonder if the maggots fed on spoiled, moldy or bacteria laden stuff if it would be safe for fish or if there is a way to "purge" them?

I know when I worked in wild bird rehab, I ordered live maggots & other insect-based foods as a change from just mealworms. I didn't know when they'd arrived. I got an angry phone call, my co-workers were not happy after they sat for a couple days LOL. They could have opened them or called sooner...

 

[Magnum Man]

that is why I said I was open for suggestions... even trying to preload the maggots could be possible... we have bottle flys here as well...

 

[Magnum Man]

 

[GaryE]

I was wrong on the fattiness issue. You'd have to harvest them before they could fly, but they sound like a good food. Gross, but good.

 

[Magnum Man]

at this point, still a discussion topic... not just going to run out and start making maggots on purpose... yet...

so we use traps around the farm, that use a pouch of powder in a double pouch, double, because it stinks so strongly of vomit, that gets poured into the trap, along with a cup of water, then it's just the typical small opening, find their way in, can't find their way out, and they catch 1000's of flys... a garbage bag grower, would not need to attract 1000's just need a few flys, and a rich enough food source, that was disease free, to grow the larvae on... just thinking of "best" / safest food sources... could be anything from pizza, to the stuff they put in petri dishes for cultures, maybe even grass clippings, or something beneficial to gut load the larvae, like spirulina???