Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Raising maggots

We used to raise maggots. The problem we ran into was that the small reptiles and birds didn't eat them all and we had flies everywhere. That's when we changed to raising mealworms.

Maggots are the larvae of the common house fly. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need rotten meat to raise them.

We used plastic tubs with a 6-7 inch lip without the lid on. Then we mixed one gallon of wheat bran with 1/2 cup of powered milk. We added enough water so that the mixture was moist but not wet enough that water settled out of the mixture. The flies would lay their eggs in this mixture.

It took 7 days to produce a crop so we had 7 tubs and kept a rotation going. A gallon of bran would produce about a pint of very clean, disease free maggots. We used a household seeve to harvest the maggots. The must be harvested at the end of 7-8 days or they will become adult flies.

Interesting what did you use the maggots for?

We fed them to small finches which then fed them to their babies. Too many flies around the place made us go to mealworms.

has anybody put roadkill on platform above pond to get maggots to grow and fall into pond?

I have spousal permission to do that after the divorce, if I'm lucky enough to end up with the pond.

cliffbrook, how would you get the maggots to fall into the water? The only thing I can think of is hanging the animal by a wire over the water.

ahhh yes, roadkill on a platform....one of the best old maggot farming techniques around

she let me spend our money to dig the pond out,
she let me hire a hydroseeder,
she let me buy an aerator,
raising maggots for free?????......i hear ya theo

as it is now i have to keep my crawlers in a separate fridge

sorry norm, i understand the whole concept, but the topic and ensuing posts just hit my funny bone this morning.......

I would think that you could hang it over the water as usally the maggots get to overflowing there meal. And look at it as a trespasser detterent, can you imagine what somebody thought if they saw animal carcasses hanging around a pond? Some sort of voodoo sacrifices going on!

i think yer on to something there trialsguy. in fact yesterday evening i took a little walk and found a dead coyote down in our creek below the pond.....that would be a good start although he's gettin old, maggots are probably through with him....we routinely see, find, or smell a dead something (deer, racoon, turkey) and could have quite an array on posts around the pond .......kinda like in the old tarzan movies when they enter a cannible tribal area.....

edited post....hey jeff, can i get a farmers tax allowance for raising maggots as fish food?

I have regularly done this, we call it a maggot pole. I stick a pole out over the water with a basket hanging from it. In the basket you place your road kill. The maggots will grow to full size amidst the succulant road kill and then they will crawl out and head downward in an attempt to find dirt to burrow into. They normally burrow into the ground where they turn into a fly. However instead of finding ground they fall into the pond. Works great if you can stand the smell. My basket is made from plain old expanded diamond steel mesh. You can also mount a basket or platform of the same material on a post out in the water. I have been accused of weird sacrificial acts over my pond.