"Free bird feeder"

[Tony O-P.]

Cotton bud plastic container, suspend from a branch and pop a few maggots inside, the little devils wiggle out of the four holes in the base and fall to the ground to be pounced on by the starlings! Cheers, Tony.

[Hedge Witch]

Interesting idea.

What sort of maggots? Fishing ones I presume. Are these OK for the birds then?

[Pippa]

Hi Tony,i have always been led to believe Maggots should never be given to birds I have been feeding birds so long i forget why now.Hopefully,someone will correct me if i am wrong.

[natureguy]

good idea tony, not sure if birds should eat maggots, i've never heard of it before although I dont see why they shouldn't. surely the same thing could be done with meal worms anyway if you didn't want to feed maggots.

[PMG]

I've never quite understood this either - from 30 years ago when looking after injured birds we were told not to feed maggots as the maggots would eat the bird ........ eh? Surely the acid stomach juices of the bird would kill the maggot wouldn't it? Or is that maggots can carry diseases which mealworms don't? And whenever you watch blue and great tits feeding young - they bite the heads of mealworms and eat that themselves - they only feed the newly dead body bit to their young? If someone can answer this after 30 years of me wondering about it - I'd be pleased!

Pauline

[Kayleigh]

I heard from a site where they sell mealworms as food for reptiles that the mealworm has strong jaws and can eat their way out of the stomach..so this may be the reason the adult birds bite the head off.
I have no idea if this is true or if the its the same for maggots but we used to go fishing and the robins would regular take maggots..

I will do search to see if I can back this up when I feel up to it..
but if anyone finds any info pleas post it..

[Tony O-P.]

The Starlings cannot get enough and they do not seem to be reducing in numbers....and the Robins and Blackbirds also eat them. I get the white undied ones only. Getting things organised to breed my own mealworms with help from websites. Cheers, Tony.

[Pippa]

For many small birds there is no better universal food than mealworms. These are the larvae of a beetle and are white, clean, fat and juicy. Though they may look like maggots, they are very different. Maggots reared for anglers' bait have invariably been fed on carrion or waste meat; as a result they are not only very rich but may well be contaminated by disease. They are thus unsuitable for baby birds and, if offered in quantity, are not good for most adult birds either.
In contrast to maggots, mealworms are reared on vegetable matter - just like the leaf-munching caterpillars the birds eat in the wild - and are a safe way of feeding chicks. Chicks reared on them don't need water since the mealworms contain sufficient moisture. .

Hi Tony and guy's i found the above information regarding mealworms and maggots.

[Geoff F]

I can remember when farmers would hang up a chicken, which had died, and let it become fly blown. The maggots would eventually fall to the ground where they would be eaten by the other chickens.

A form of recycling, albeit rather smelly. But, in those days, farmyards were always a bit on the 'high' side.

[yoyo]

Hi,

Here's another way of making a free bird feeder. Place some string (with a knot at one end) through a flat square wooden platform. Pierce a few apples and thread them though the string. I got the idea from this Bird Feed Video Site. hope this helps. Newby, Janice