Mad Chook Disease??

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

  1. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Rotten flesh eating maggot raised organic eggs :puke: :pukeright: :pukeright: :pukeright: :pukeright: :pukeleft: :pukeleft: :pukeleft: :pukeleft: :puke: :lol:

    C
     
  2. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Still very interesting option.....

    :pukeleft:
     
  3. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    so :roll: wouldnt "mad chook disease" be a group of mad chook raisers discussing the best way to raise rotten flesh eating maggots to feed their chooks :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

    frosty
     
  4. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Dang, first I was diagnosed by YOU, Dr Frosty, with CDD, now I am at risk of Mad Chook Disease?

    Help! I am swabbing the keyboard with alcohol...
     
  5. frosty

    frosty Junior Member

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    :lol: dont drink too much of that alcohol as you swab cwistofer :wink: :lol: :lol:

    dr frosty :D
     
  6. Lolly

    Lolly Junior Member

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    Hi all.. :) It really would appear that Gar and I are truly sick puppies, but we're not. In point of fact, you guys are coming up with better ideas than we did! But seriously, thank you all for your suggestions. And yes Joel, we are a perfect match. :razz:

    Now considering that I am significantly more wholesome than Gargun, perhaps I ought to raise mealy bugs in rice bran and leave the nasty wrigglies to Gar to deal with..! :wink:

    Cheers to me too... I managed to eat my dinner whilst reading the posts on this thread!

    Giggles to you Christopher - "Rotten flesh eating maggot raised organic eggs"... don't they just sound delicious? Richard, those poor marlins. I don't think I'd like to know that fella either.. :(

    Thanks again all, and keep the good ideas coming.
     
  7. barely run

    barely run Junior Member

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    :evil: :evil: :evil: YUK YUK YUK YOU ALL VERY VERY SICKO'S
    Maggots are my least friendly lifeform...bury your cook and use as blood and bone...plant a fruit tree over it ..then use your excess fruit to feed your chooks
    Cathy
     
  8. Lolly

    Lolly Junior Member

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    :shock: I'm sorry to make you so angry Cathy!

    Linda
     
  9. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    If you set up a worm farm near your chooks....start smaller farms using some worms and scraps...throw in some road kill or leftovers from Lolly's cooking to attract flys.

    Flys lay eggs....maggots do the maggot thing....a few more bits and pieces to cover it a little....then when all is ready....just tip out for the chooks.

    Might be one way of controlling any smell issues.

    :)
     
  10. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    Maggots ,maggots maggots, gee they realy breed like flys dont they...

    I think we have discussed the diferent ways to give our chooks extra vitimins before in here

    Good luck with your venture Im sure ittll work out fine...

    How much roadkill do you guys get ...better look harder before i cross your roads...

    Maggots will feed anything able to fit into their mouths

    Welcome to the Hotel California ooops hotel maggotonia

    Tezza
     
  11. Franceyne

    Franceyne Junior Member

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    This is a great thread - and here I was thinking that leaving choice bits of wood around for termites to infest (I'm in termite country) and then feeding them to my (future) chooks was a bit gross :lol: :lol:

    The one thing that worries me is that if you put the Maggot Hotel in or even near your chook pen that the smell will attract foxes and other meat eaters that normally would not come visiting so closely to your chooks - especially if they think that there is an easy (dead - no need to chase) meal on the offering.

    Cheers,
    Fran.
     
  12. Tamandco

    Tamandco Junior Member

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  13. chookiepoo

    chookiepoo Junior Member

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    This whole thread has had me in stitches and bellowing out quotes to my husband (watching Alias). Very intriguing idea, maggots. Collecting road-kill is pretty labour intensive, and pretty disgusting! Is it really worth all that time and effort? (What will your mother say?!) Are you going to try and feed them solely on maggots or other food, veg scraps. I s'pose a balanced diet of maggots, food scraps, bugs from the garden aint so bad. Purely maggoty meals might be a bit constipating - don't chooks need their leafy green veg, too? (hmm, what's more tantalising: a handful of wriggling maggots/packet of TimTams or handfuls of silverbeet? I know which one I'd prefer!)

    I've got bits of timber lying around (making some more raised beds) and whenever I flick them over there are a multitude of slaters, millipedes, slugs, etc (even worms!). I'm thinking of stockpiling them in the chook pen (the timber, not the bugs) until I'm ready to use them, and turning them every couple of days so the chooks can have a bit of a feast. When the timber's far away from the chook pen, I find by the time I let out the chooks, the bugs have all wriggled away :)sigh:, such waste!)

    Keep 'em coming, haven't had such a good laugh in ages!

    chookiepoo
     
  14. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    Chookiepoo I did that when I was living in Ballarat. I had two sets of planks of wood. Each week I would turn over one set. The chooks (bantams) would get all excited when I'd walk over to turn them.

    Would be the only time when I'd go into their pen that they would actually be standing on my feet trying to be first in line for a worm or slater or whatever else would be hiding under the planks.

    :)
     
  15. gargun

    gargun Junior Member

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    Hi to everyone and thanks for all of your input.

    I must confess to being slightly bemused by some of the posts on this thread.

    My whole question was geared towards whether or not feeding maggots to my chooks would create a health risk if the maggots were from chook carcasses... :?

    Whilst I realise that some people may find the idea of "growing" maggots distasteful (remember....I'm gonna be the poor sod who has to put up with the smell, and I assure you I aint looking forward to it), I feel that it is a perfectly acceptable way to supplement (emphasis on Supplement) their nutritional intake.

    I would still appreciate a post from anyone who could tell me conclusively whether or not this method of providing food to my beloved chooks (and I do like my chooks a lot) would create any potential health problems similar to that experienced with Mad Cow Disease.

    Once again....thanks to everyone for their input whether it be serious, controversial, or tongue-in-cheek....

    Regards

    Ray
     
  16. SueinWA

    SueinWA Junior Member

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    The conclusive results aren't in yet because the scientific tests are only 7 yrs old. It takes approx. 10 years for BSE to show up.

    Tests are also being run on pigs along the same lines, and those tests are also only 7 yrs old.

    Personally, I have dealt with enough maggots in neglected dogs (I used to work for a vet) to have developed a really healthy hatred of those little suckers. Yes, I know they provide a needed service, but they're going to have to do it away from me and out of my sight... and smell.

    I simply think that there are other ways to provide protein to my "girls". I won't ask them to eat each other. And I have absolutely no evidence, but I have wondered if same-species cannibalism fosters predatory behavior in the species. People have long claimed that lions and tigers (etc) have developed preferences for people. Is it because they tend to be easy prey, or because they taste good? (Another good reason to avoid genetic engineering: Man-eating chooks!)

    Sue
     
  17. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Ray,

    Mad cow (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or BVE) is specific to cattle, though scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans are related to the practice of eating rendered cow spinal tissue and brain matter of infected cattle.

    If your chooks are eating maggots from other chooks there is zero, Z_E_R_O, possibility of BVE being transferred as the source of the disease is nerve tissue of infected cattle. There is your definitive answer. Even if they ate infected cow brains, (the maggots) they would almost certainly not be able to transmit the disease, tho I would not suggest that feeding cattle brains to your birds via maggots is a good idea, either.

    As I said earlier in this thread, there may be other legitimate health related concerns about this really tight closed loop system of rotting chook to maggot to chook to egg or meat, but mad cow is definitely NOT one of those concerns.

    I just got back from a trip up to Belmopan to look into some collaboration with Min of Ag, found some cow pea and mung bean seed, an unsuccesful search for peanut seed, a successful search for vetiver grass, a fruitless search for the California Red wriggler earth worms, and a fruitful search for guinea pigs. The idea was to put the guinea pigs in a pen above the worm bin (already built by Dawn the Incredible), where their manure would fall into the pen to be broken down by the worms.... all in time for Esperanzas fifth birthday tomorrow....

    When we got back (took my two year old daughter, Zephyr, out with me for three nights), we found the down stairs stone floor (MY stone floor, dag nabbit!) liberally plastered with chookie poop, or, as we say in Belize, "chicken shit", which bums me out, since the floor took weeks of work to lay and looks beautiful, when not festooned with stinking gobs of chook droppings.....

    Dawn explained that we had a termite swarm, which was erupting out of the ground. She let the chooks out of their pen (ususally penned up until 12 noon) at 6:30 AM, led them over to the swarm and stood around until the chooks found the little nasties, the house and book munching wood maggots (tied back to maggots, see?), and then our flock of birds, they chowed down.

    This happened three days in a row, so for three days they had a huge breakfast if wood lice (local name for termites), and after eating them all, and pooping up a storm, they foraged the rest of the day. She says she didn't need to shell any corn, or provide any other food.....

    The problem is the solution (is a whole other problem..)

    Back to the issue at hand, apart from any possible health issues, of which Mad Cow Disease can be ruled out completely, (I can't name any potential illnesses off hand,) the real issue is... and picture this please, fetid, stinking decayed chook munching maggots cycled to your plate through another chook.... not exactly yumm.. Looks like a super closed loop system, nutrient cycling that is a bit, um, too tight for me... :puke:

    It's not exactly cannabalism, but it is pretty close, urp, I think I'm gonna :puke:

    Enjoy your eggs or meat!

    C
     
  18. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    So why do you have to use a chook as a fly/maggot breeding colony.....How many dead chooks have you got.Why stick with em
    theres a dozen or so ways to breed flys,Not all smelly ones or fly adding to the world at large lol.Ive heard a mate mention that he did em as a kid for fishing they all have their own secret recipe im sure.Shouldnt be any smell
    i wouldnt think so...Anyone out there know the life cycles? could have enough for everyday, to feed chooks and also to the numerous new devoties like
    myself who have personally visited joels fish growing emporium and actually bought the book and dvd with extra cd rom,a real bargain....P

    Personally myself im learning to be more biodeverse and making sure with everything lolol.and will not be using the same maggo food to often.I personally would never leave any creature in an area where its family is
    to gather fly eggs....Just in case in the future, chooks come back as the dominant species and use me as a maggo breeding plan...With all the decomposing we all do and the more then ample stock supplyers without any smell or major addition to the fly population.....Actually if we keep harvesting the maggots, wont the ones laying their replacements run out of replacements and maybe die out a bit .........

    Dont ask for any recipes i aint started yet!! :(

    Tezza
     
  19. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Christopher, you said it! That's the cycle so often it seems! Life just wants to be complicated!
     
  20. gargun

    gargun Junior Member

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    Hi everyone...

    I can see that there is still a lot of debate over the why's and wherefores so here goes my feeble attempt to clarify...lmao :lol:

    I am not going to only feed my chooks on maggots....I am very happy with their current diet of greens, bugs, household scraps etc...I just wondered if feeding maggots to them would be another way of providing a good source of protein (albeit an admittedly repugnant one) :wink:

    I like the idea of picking up the odd roadkill roo and recycling it through my chooks....seems a better end result to me than just leaving it lying on the road (yes!!! I know other wild critters feast on roadkill...but why can't I make use of their plentiful numbers as well?)

    I'm fully aware that Mad Cow Disease applies only to Cows, and even though its called Bovine something-or-other, my question was really whether chook reared maggots would create a similar type of disease...not whether my chooks would get a disease related to cows!!! :?

    I can relate to everyone wanting to know "why" I would want to engage in something so horrid...believe me, the idea doesn't exactly inspire me to start reaching for my shovel, but I seriously think the idea has its merits and was wondering why it "couldn't" be done rather than whether it "shouldn't" be done for reasons of pleasantness etc.

    Still wondering... 8)
    Regards

    Ray
     

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