Mad Chook Disease??

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by gargun, Oct 2, 2005.

  1. Guest

    Hi Gargun,
    I guess this is really more questions, than it is an answer... but may be worth factoring in.

    When maggots are swallowed whole, I would not imagine they would actually die immediately would they? While I imagine their life is limited while confined to the digestive system, could it be possible that they actually continue to eat internal tissue, bacteria etc. while in the digestive system?

    Clearly - small doses of this have had no negative effects on chooks, and may even be beneficial in addressing bacteria within the system - BUT - if maggots were to become a regular part of the diet, would it be a case of "too much of anything does harm"?

    This would need a study, I think. And the only way to do that, is to do it and measure the results. Are you able to set up a separate pen with the Hotel Maggot in it, and use a sample of your chooks experimentally?

    I would also be interested to see if any positive results were found by 'treating' any unwell chooks with a spell in the Hotel Maggot pen. I think your idea is really sound - and the potential for a cure for such diseases like Mad Cow and other digestive diseases may actually be staring you in the face!

    Go for it Gargun - give it a whirl and record your results. I'd love to read them.
     
  2. gargun

    gargun Junior Member

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    An official answer...

    I finally have an answer to the question after phoning a Veterinary Health Officer at the DPI.

    Her response was as follows...

    1. There is no reason why you can't feed maggots to your chooks...after all, they eat flys and bugs whilst free-ranging.

    2. If chooks are free-ranging and being fed a balanced diet including pellets and greens, the likely nutritional benefits of supplementing their diet with road-kill reared maggots is probably minimal, though it wouldn't hurt supplementing this way in small amounts.

    3. Health concerns may be posed due to the possibility of bacterial contamination from the maggots...there have been no studies into this possibility conducted.

    So....there you have it happy campers :wink:

    My concerns are the whole bacterial aspect of the question....

    I therefore think I'll leave it to my chooks to find their bugs eau-natural :razz:

    But then again....what about feeding them fish remains that have come from fish that are fed maggots??? :shock:

    The saga continues?!? :twisted:

    Ray
     
  3. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Well, today I dumped out the manky bin we dump our kitchen by products that can't be eaten by chooks. All the chook edible stuff goes directly to the chookery, burnt beans, old rice, leftover food, partially defatted coconut, noni seed and pulp... but onion skins, garlic paper, banana and citrus peels, firewood detritus, coffee grounds, tea bags or leaves, used lemon grass, grated ginger that has been used, etc, goes into a 10 gallon tote bin, where it sits until the bin gets to overflowing.

    Dawn and I fight over it. I want it all to go to my favorite tree (a big avocado I planted in 1989), which has rows of pineapple planted on contour across the root zone, both above and below the trunk. It frequently gets full of maggots, and the chooks and ducks like them VERY much....

    Anyways, we had a whopper of a bin, very heavy, with a lot of coffee grounds (me: :bigsmurf: :coffee2: ), a fair amount of tea (Dawn), onion skins, citrus peels, banana peels, and enough of something that makes good food for maggots, because the bin was making noises when I picked it up, little crawly noises, and I could see into the depths past the banana leaves (we use them for baking as a home grown "cookie sheet"), down below the twigs into the ugh,-thats-really-disgusting zone.

    When I let the chooks out, I called them, and they followed me, 50 birds, ducks and chooks, in a sort of herd, or pack, all the way to where they bin had been dumped. Sitting there was a wet, fetid pile of semi decaying plant matter, which the chooks started scratching with gusto (they done did this before), and eating the maggots.

    I went back and the maggot bin had been reduced to a wet and slightly smelly spot as the chooks had scratched it all up in the hunt for the maggots, sendig it down hill into the root zone of our pineapple hedge, where it will decay further, along with the chook poop, making our pineapples bigger, better, and holding nutrients which will benefit the first tree I ever planted..... The hedge on contour also holds all the la\eaves tha avo tree drops, the occasional banana stem when we harvest, along with collecting the fruit for me to collect.....

    I expect a spike in egg production the day after tomorrow :lol: .

    I call the maggot breeding MMIEMBfCT, or Maya Mountain Intermittent, Episodic Maggot Breeding for Chooks Technique. For those of you in tropical climes, this helps to control flies, too, as the eggs all become chook food before they can get to breeding age, and then, fertilizer as the maggots get speed composted out the backside.

    Anyway, Gargun, thought of ya, and had to share my little maggot rearing technique with you!
     
  4. jimi

    jimi Junior Member

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    Hmmm...

    I think that that's a rather good meathod.
     
  5. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    No comment on this subject resting my overworked brain


    Tezza

    I BET others feel this way also the links are really inviting
     
  6. earthbound

    earthbound Junior Member

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    Don't even think about it Tezza........ It's one of those bloody advert posts...... notice his links under his name...... :evil: :evil:
     
  7. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    No worrys there joel I dont need gambling in my life .

    I countmyself lucky in that i stopped gamblinat 20 actually stopped being a winner,,If i used money id of been rich i just did it with pretend money.and actually stayed in fron over the years.even i dont beleive my luck from those days.....but theres no such thing as luck is there.....

    The posting area must be affecting somepeople out there all these bum links bugs and now consumer terrerists and gambling dens..it helps to not have money before you start gamblin,so as to be prepared for life after gamblin :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

    Tezza
     
  8. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Just thought I'd bump this back to life.

    We have been raisinf maggots since last nyear in specially designed compost bins, letting the material get maggoty, and then turning it over to the chooks, usually up himm from target tree/pineapple crescent/vanilla assembly. The results are fantastic!

    My five daughter caught a 10 kilo barracuda while coming back from a days work on solar inspection out in a protected marine environment, and we took the heaad and added it to the compost bhin, which is now positively boining with maggots, and there is almost no flesh left.

    Tomorrow it all goes out to the chooks!

    Anyone else raisinf maggots?
     
  9. Mungbeans

    Mungbeans Junior Member

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    >Anyone else raisinf maggots?

    I have a great crop in my worm farm. Unfortunately I don't have any chooks to feed them to. I could lure them to the top with some milky bread and then feed them to the birds, but I'll probably only be encouraging the Indian Mynas.
     
  10. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    Well Bumped up Chris Im sure this will help Some Of those wanting to know what to feed Chooks...

    As for the Maggots...well I learnt to get them going.Really easy..only takes a Coupla days to get the flies to strike...I used a peice of Liver i allowed 2 days to allow the flies to fill it with fly eggs.after about 4 days growing i let them into some Pollard or Bran.They eat all the pollard and grow fat and then after bout a week they are nice n fat n juicy the smell has gone now,and they just get bigger,I used my maggots for feding baby chooks day old chicks.Its great stuff,little chicks need all the goodness they can find,I hate the commercial growing feed,its got too many extras this permie dont want being given to my chicks...

    Living in West Oz and the many billions of flies that get bred naturally.
    i think i found a great little feed making set up..

    From this spring Ill be using maggots in My Aquaponics setup


    Tezza
     
  11. Franceyne

    Franceyne Junior Member

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    Hahaha!! Did you type that in the dark Jungle Man? Typing is worse than usual ;)

    We want to look at this when we finally get our chooks...and harvesting termites which are common little buggers in our area.

    How do you find the smell? Do they smell?

    :D
     
  12. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Frabcetne,

    My typong is not two bad!

    Um, well the smell is incredible when the bin is open, now, with the fish head, but with the lid closed, no smell! Open it and the bin is BOILING with maggots! Absolutely incredible!

    I also seek out termites for the chooks, but am so pleased with the maggot growth right now!

    How was lunch, GD, HP?

    C
     
  13. chookiepoo

    chookiepoo Junior Member

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    Hi Ray,

    I hate to admit it, but I've thrown chicken scraps (raw and cooked) to my chooks after big parties. Nothing happened to them. To feed your chooks maggots which have been fed on chook means that the goodies in the dead chook have already been "processed" by the maggots, and broken down into nutrients and compounds and whatever.

    Since in the wild, some animals are occasionally cannibalistic (just like sometimes animals in certain situations display homosexual tendencies) I thought it wouldn't go completely against nature, although of course we don't want to encourage it (cannibalism). Chooks can eat their own eggs sometimes - it doesn't harm them. Sometimes, if I have heaps and heaps of eggs that are piling up, and I know a certain bunch of them are "on the verge" and I don't want to risk giving them away and having my neighbours keeping them for a week and then experiencing a nasty surprise, I'll boil the lot up, chop them coarsely (I don't bother peeling them) and toss them back to the chooks. Cows and most other mammals (I think) eat the placenta and membranes left over when their young are born, not to mention licking off all the blood and gunk.

    Cheers,
    Ksenia
     

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