What is it with me and crap in buckets, anyway? My doomer buddy turned me onto the maggot bucket. Five gallon bucket with two rings of1/2 inch diameter holes drilled about three inches from the bottom. Grass or leaf layer in the bottom third, some old rotten thing that flies have laid eggs on goes on the clippings, and cover with more leaves or whatever. Snap lid on and hang it a couple of feet off the ground in the chicken pen. Maggots hatch, eat and squiggle out the holes and fall on the ground. The chickens just hang out waiting for manna to fall from the sky.
Too cool. I’m just driving down the highway and see a raccoon roadkill on the centerline, slowed down enough to reach out the door and fling it into the back of the pickup. The flies had done their work and the day after I put it in the bucket it’s maggots foaming out of the holes. Happy chickens. Free chicken feed, happy comrade.
Sure beats sifting them out of a bucket by hand.
Awesome! Definitely somethin’ to “store away” in the ol’ brain! That’s what I like about you, simple, no bullshit solutions. Keep ‘em comin’!
Thanks Comrade. The same can be done with floating the dead critter over a pond in a wire cage. Great source of protein for the fish. Should be about 6 to 12 inches between the cage and the water. Fish love them maggots. The cage keeps the birds from cleaning the meat off the critter. It is now legal in Tennessee to pick up road kill. As they say, the best things are free.
Great idea! my girls are gonna start eatin high class now.
Yep, simple as the day is long. Reinforces my belief that this permaculture thing doesn’t have to be hard – just have to find the right tricks to make it naturally easy.
Thanks for the comments!
Maybe you would like to look around http://journeytoforever.org/farm.html for starters scroll to the links at the bottom of the page. The site is pretty good – not a prepper site, but for breaking away from the agrimill & producing your own. Most of the books are free but not all. I finally found a link to “Handy farm devices and how to make them” a reprint of an old book but free on this page http://journeytoforever.org/at_linkag.html
Anyway I guess you can read as good as I can.
hth,
Stephanie in AR
Elegant solution to my chronic problem about what to do with what the “dog dragged home”. Thank YOU, comrade!
This is a great use of a resource – turning maggots into chickens and eggs.
Of course a real hard-core survivalist would simply eat the maggots…
Naw, ya eat the roadkill before the maggot got to it, hehehe…
Great idea! Now maybe your chickens will fatten up easier.
I’m just catching up on your recent posts. Somehow, I had bookmarked an individual page and didn’t realize I was missing the home page. Just an idiot, I guess.
I hear your frustration with sharing or selling your stuff to the regular straights out there who don’t “get” the collapse and could care less about the suffering of chickens in commercial plants. I have an encouraging story, though. I really need regular massages to help with a chronic pain condition I have, but who can afford weekly professional massages? Well, I can! We barter. My massage therapist gives me a half hour massage per week. I bring her a dozen eggs from our anarchist chickens, a loaf of homemade bread, and some fresh veggies from the garden. We are both happy.
Hang in there, Comrade. You are doing great! Don’t feel bad about the machinery. If you were younger and had six kids you could regularly send out to the field to weed, that’d be different. Right now, you’re just one guy. When the collapse really hits, and there is no gas to buy, there will probably be people coming by begging to weed your garden for a meal. Let’s hope they are the same ones who bitched about your cheese… lol
Comrade,
I presume you have seen the “Roadkill Cookbook”? In Alaska they have so much large animal roadkill one of the local colleges offers a course on how to harvest these moose, elk, etc roadkill. The real thrill is the hands on part of the course, filling a freezer for practically no money.
Been a couple of hard times in my life that I picked up fresh road kill squirrels for supper. Of course I had a bunch of squeamish acquaintances and friends that didn’t accept invitations for dinner any more either. In fact, conversations flat out became strained. sigh.
Hello again my friend,
I must admit that the title really raised my expectations. I envisioned such a grand device that might be appropriate for politicians and other quasi political vermin of their ilk. I can see it now ,”Hey Clyde, pitch them two building inspectors, the social democrat, and that county comissioner in the maggot bucket. We’ll find a couple of do gooders to top it off, and the community will enjoy a peaceful weekend.”
I think any of the above critters can be used to feed chickens, but chickens really prefer their feed in bite sized pieces. The building inspectors can be such a large proportion of asshole that they might be hard to grind, so hogs are really the time tested solution for those fellers. But, this really shows the utility of chickens being able to turn most objects no matter how gross or misinformed right back into tasty eggs and chicken.
This has caused me to reflect on my long held opinion that a rifle without a backhoe is only half a solution…… Anyway dude, this maggot bucket thing has really got some potential. Think I’ll grab the hoe and head out to the garden and codgertate.
tired John
P.S. got great coon story…
So I make progress with free chicken feed and in the same week forget about the sun moving across the sky and leave the new chicks unprotected from 95 degree heat in full sun. Ten little carcasses for the maggot bucket. That one really fucked me up. I was paying bills online and lost track of time. God damn 21st century machinations. So the sole survivor “Cornstarch” is now a family pet.
tired john – thanks for the laugh. I needed it. send you coon story to csimba on yahoo.
freeacre – thanks for the interest in the site. The more I know people are looking the more I tend to post. Gonna be another scorcher today – gonna hide inside and write.
Hi Comrade,we have been enjoying your site for a few months now, my husband wanted to pack up the truck and come for a visit, you post like he thinks, lol….
I was thinking ewwww on the maggot bucket…not the idea, but the roadkill part….after some non-roadkill food out on the porch turned into a batch of healthy maggots, I figure ya don’t need to pick up stinky rotted nasties off the road….they call that dinner round these parts, lol
a buddy of ours bagged a deer with his harley(actually took out 4 that year with his bike, figure he must be saving his ammo for some other need), he was laying out in the weeds with the wind knocked outta him when a couple guys pulled up in a truck got out and walked around the dead deer, and said thar’s still good meat on that deer, then they proceeded to pick it up and throw in in the back of their truck and took off, never once checking on our buddy or his bike…gotta love them good country boys…
hope your able to keep up the posts, we enjoy reading them and knowing we aren’t alone in our ways of thinking about the outside world…
Hey Miss’ippi, Just give me some lead time so’s I can have dinner ready…
No food is wasted in our household, we have “to the goats” laying on the counter next to a bowl for the pig and old refrigerator chicken goodies just sorta make their way to the hen house when discovered. I’ve had to throw manure in the worm bin just to keep them alive.
Glad you stopped by!