The search of alternative and sustainable proteins is an issue of major importance that needs viable solutions in the short term, making maggot meal an increasing attractive feed option for poultry. Insects are natural food sources for poultry e.g. Chickens can be found picking worms and larvae from the topsoil and litter where they walk.
Maggot meal has been included in broiler diets as a replacement for conventional protein sources, notably fish meal. Most trials indicate that partial or total replacement of fish meal is possible, though the optimal inclusion rate is generally lower than 10%.Higher rates have resulted in lower intake and performance, perhaps due to a decrease in palatability, as the darker color of meal may be less appealing to chickens.
There have been numerous experiments on the use of maggots in the diets of African catfish, mostly Clarias gariepinus. The results are generally positive though the inclusion of maggot meal should be limited to 25-30% as performance tends to decrease when higher inclusion rates are used. It is unanimously agreed that maggot meal shows great potential as an alternative protein source that can replace conventional protein sources used in animal nutrition. Therefore, its production on a larger scale is encouraged.
Two Common Protein Sources in Feed Formulation are
- Fish Meal: Highly expensive
- Soya Meal: Highly expensive
Who needs maggot?
All farmers that formulates feed such as Fish farmers, Snail farmers, Pig farmers, poultry farmers and so on.
Nutritional values of maggots are:
Maggots consist of 65% protein and 25% fat compared to the 35% protein in soya based feed. Maggot is a solution to the high cost of feed in the fish and livestock production because it has up to 39% crude protein and up to 60% if handled well which makes it a substitute for protein in livestock feed. The %inclusion should not be 100% i.e it can be substituted for crude protein source for close to 30 to 40%
How to breed odorless maggots.
Get any plastic open container. Size should be according to the quantity of maggot you want to make from it.
Get any substrate that is not smelly like rice bran, wheat offal, pkc, maize shaft from pap, cassava shaft. They serve as bedding and substrate for files to lay their eggs.
Mix some quantity of sugar or molasses allow the mixture to stay for 24 hours covering it in a cool and dry place.
Mix the water with any substrate you have chosen till it forms a mesh. Do not water log the substrate. Leave the plastic containing the substrate in an isolated place with no disturbance.
Make sure daily you wet the mixture by sprinkling water so it would remain in a mesh form. Because once the substrate is dry, flies would not eat from the substrate and would not lay eggs producing very little or no maggots. After 3days you will notice lots of files around the plastic containing the substrate.
After 5days, you will notice lots of white clutches of materials at a different part inside the mesh mixture. These are flies eggs. So at the beginning of day six, close up the open part of the plastic with a mosquito net so that nothing goes in or out of the container and don’t forget to keep sprinkling water daily.
Plastic container should remain in a cool and dry place such as under a plantain tree or banana trees or any tree that forms some level of shades so as to avoid direct sunlight heating up the system.
From day 6, you will start to notice lots of maggot formation though small in nature. To make them big, sprinkle little baker’s yeast, it makes them grow faster. Though, if you don’t have yeast the maggots will keep feeding on substrate.Harvesting can start from day 7 till day day 12 depending on the size of fish or animal u want to feed them with. You can harvest by adding salt to warm water in a bucket. Naturally, maggots enjoy staying under the layers of the substrate. So it is advisable to pack out the first layer then pour the maggots with the substrate in the container with the warm salt water solution.
Maggots will float up while the substrate will sink. So you can use a sieve to separate the maggots from the water.
- Maggots can be fed to animals like fish, poultry etc. or they can be sundried, grounded and mixed with feed formula replacing costly soya and fish meal there by reducing cost of your fed and stiil haiving high quality feed with less cost.
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