Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding maggots.

I made the mistake of suggesting to my wife and daughter that I wanted to try the dead animal (road kill) on a coarse screen over the pond to feed the fish maggots that fall into the water.
Cant remember where I read about this method. Oh yeah it was here! They both looked at me like I was sick in the head and promptly vetoed anything like it. Not a "well lets talk about it" Nothing.
Flat out veto with threats!
Damn.
jim

I have attempted it with raccoons, opossums and armadillos my dogs kill. Instead of fish, chickens where the consumers. A problem was the juices dripped out of the carcass too quickly as did the maggots before mature resulting in about half of the carcasses mummifying rather than converted into edible biomass. If I were to do it again, then carcasses would be placed on a cookie sheet with a little soil added. The maggots would then stay with carcass until the final instar before moving away from carcass to pupate. Then they fall to ground to be consumed. You want to keep carrion beetles away as they eat most of the maggots. Having carcass elevated reduces odds the carrion beetles will start working carcass.

Consider doing Black Soldier Flies as they can grow on a mix that is based on plant offal.

someone please help link jim to the black soldier fly thread that had great documentation and pictures to get him started. I suspect his wife/family will be fine with that kind of setup as it is contained and can be easily disguised as a normal deck box in the yard or edge of pond.

Here's a couple I know of...

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=503702

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=123254

Thanks I will study on this.
jim

Tell them to think of it like dry aging, similar to the finest beef in upscale restaurants.

Seriously, black soldier fly approach may be interesting. Little smell, and they actually keep nasty houseflies away.

The poor, misunderstood, unfortunately named Maggot Box.

I have grown them on mix of alfalfa, grass clippings, and cardboard. Was only trying to compost this mix to feed to worms but the BSF took a liking to it and proliferated. After they infested the compost I kept it too moist for composting which was a benefit to the BSF. The mix was smelly though ... a whole lot like fresh cow dung .. and I exercised care after handling BSF. I'd bet there was a thriving population of e-coli in the substrate.