House Flies

Bluebottle larvae, which most people know as maggots but anglers call 'gentles', can be bought during the fishing season from angling shops, and a culture can be started from these. The alternative is to use a big cage, perhaps one that has become damaged, or you can use a large, chrome plated budgie cage. Make a container from a piece of wire mesh so that it is nearly as large as the cage,and hang it from some wire hooks inside the cage. The apparatus is hung inside a cage, so that every bird in the vicinity will not pick the maggots from your culture before you can get at them. The floor of the cage should be taken up with a large plastic tray about2.5 cm (1 in) deep. Some cages are already fitted with one of these.

The wire mesh box should neither touch the bars of the cage nor dangle below the top edge of the tray which you should fill with bran. Some people substitute sawdust for bran, and it works every bit as well, but I do not like it in case any small splinters adhere to a maggot and are swallowed. The next thing to do is to fill the wire mesh basket with scraps of meat, or preferably fish heads, guts and so on Make sure that the basket is full because if there is only a small quantity it will dry out rather than putrefy and you will not get any maggots. Hang the cage as far from people as you can - breeding maggots is a smelly business.What happens is that Bluebottles and House Flies are attracted by the meat and lay their eggs on it. In a few days these become maggots and feed on the meat and eventually drop onto the bran where they wriggle about. The bran cleans all the putrefying meat juices from them so they are ready to use and are no longer offensive. Do not try to feed the maggots to your animals until they have been cleaned in the bran. When you judge that the bran is seething mass of maggots, tip the lot into a suitable container, refill and replace the tray, and if necessary the meat, and you are ready to go a second time. Both the maggots and the adults are taken as food, and some animals such as Chipmunks will also eat the inter-mediate stage, the pupa. It is a good idea to keep two or three cultures at different stages so that you have a steady supply of maggots. The breeding process could be continued through the winter in theory, but it would have to be situated in your heated animal room where it would be so smelly that I cannot imagine anyone wanting to do it.

Maggots can be made to last longer before they pupate by keeping them in a refrigerator, but whatever you keep them in it should not be airtight as the whole lot start to 'sweat', the moisture builds up, they stink and soon you lose the lot. The best thing is to cover the top of the container with a piece of women's nylon tights held in place with an elastic band and then, if the flies do hatch out, they cannot escape and fill the refrigerator. And, of course, do not keep them in a refrigerator in your kitchen; that is a disgusting habit. Keep them in a special animal room refrigerator.