12 BULLETIIS" NO. 200, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 

 SOME ADVANTAGES OF THE MAGGOT TRAP. 



Some of the advantages of the maggot trap are obvious enough and 

 need be only briefly mentioned here. It is an exceedingly simple 

 arrangement, and the initial cost of construction need not be very 

 great. Once having been constructed, no continuous money outlay 

 for its maintenance is necessary. The concrete parts ^re permanent, 

 and the wooden platform would require renewal only at intervals of 

 several years, depending partly on the kind of wood used. The writer 

 is of the opinion that in the long run the maggot trap would be less 

 expensive than the investment which many farmers now make in 

 screens for their dwellings and repellents, sprays, and fly nets for the 

 protection of their animals. 



The labor required in the operation of the maggot trap is a very 

 small item. It is just as easy to place the manure on the platform as 

 to dump it on the ordinary pile. It requires only a few minutes each 

 day to see to it that the daily addition is carefully and compactly 

 heaped and the entire heap weU. moistened. The work of cleaning out 

 the floor below the platform will require about one-haK an hour once 

 a week. 



It is very easy to run a wagon or manure spreader close alongside 

 the maggot trap, as a glance at the photographs will show, and it 

 would be just as easy, or indeed easier, to load from such a platform 

 than from the ground. To facilitate loading as well as the cleaning 

 of the floor below, the platform should be no more than 10 or 12 feet 

 wide. 



The maggot trap can be adapted for use on farms where the daily 

 production of manure is very great. As was stated on a preceding 

 page, the trap used in this experiment would hold the total production 

 from three horses for three months. Now the problem of construct- 

 ing a trap of reasonable size to take care of the manure of 40 or 50 

 horses is not as hopeless as might at first appear. The production of 

 manure per horse per day may be safely estimated at 2 cubic feet. It 

 will be seen that a platform 10 by 20 feet would hold manure produced 

 by 50 horses during a period of 10 days if the heap is made 5 feet high. 

 If two platforms are arranged as suggested in figure 4 they could be 

 operated as follows: Platform No. 1 would be gradually filled up 

 during the first 10 days; then, while Uiis remams on the platform, the 

 manure produced during the second 10 days would be placed on plat- 

 form No. 2; at the end of 20 days the manure on platform No. 1 would 

 be hauled away and the platform refiUed durmg the third 10-day 

 period while heap No. 2 was standing the length of time required to 

 rid it of maggots. In this way the two piles would alternate, the one 

 being in the process of formation and the other standing till practi- 

 cally all maggots had left it. It would be convenient, as indicated in 



