

THE GAME BREEDER 



175 



pail full of maggots. The pail was stand- 

 ing on a hillside and easily was tipped 

 over. The young birds were killed by 

 eating large numbers of fresh maggots. 

 There can be no doubt that maggots 

 are excellent food for young birds when 

 they are properly prepared and fed spar- 

 ingly. They seem to be quite necessary 

 in places where there are no insects. 

 Meal worms, however, always advertised 

 in The Game Breeder, would seem to be 

 a clean substitute now easily procured. 

 At the Long Island Game Breeders' As- 

 sociation and in fact at the many game 

 farms and preserves I have visited the in- 

 sects seem to be sufficiently abundant 

 and maggots are never used. It is well 

 to know how to secure maggots, how- 

 ever, since in a very dry season there 

 may be a shortage of insects, which 

 would make it quite necessary to use 

 some substitute. 



How to Raise Maggots. 



Mr. Gene M. Simpson, of Oregon, a 

 very successful breeder of pheasants, 

 always uses the larvae of the common 

 blue fly (maggots). When this food is 

 used, he says, "nothing else need be fed, 

 except greens occasionally. However, 

 the chick food or cracked wheat should 

 be kept before them that they may learn 

 to eat it and be prepared to adapt them- 

 selves to the whole wheat diet when the 

 larvae food has been discontinued, which 

 should be done gradually. The objec- 

 tion to the larvae food is the offensive 

 odor ordinarily associated with it. This 

 must be overcome by raising the larvae 

 scientifically. Contrary to the common- 

 ly accepted idea, the larvae of the fly pre- 

 fer fresh to decaying meat. Professor 

 McGillivray, of Queen's University, To- 

 ronto, who has successfully raised ring- 

 neck pheasants, says: "Our investiga- 

 tion and study of entomology prove to 

 us that maggots, separated from their 

 usual surroundings, are just as clean and 

 odorless as young chickens. Flies do not 

 lay their eggs on tainted meat when fresh 

 meat can be found, and maggots are 

 clean feeders from choice and thrive 

 best on fresh meat." 



If the following method is employed. 



there will be little or no odor. Secure a 

 quantity of green bone and meat trim- 

 mings coarsely ground together. Take 

 a tin pan with straight sides at least three 

 inches deep and cover bottom with shorts, 

 bran or fine dirt, preferably bran, as the 

 shorts have a tendency to pack. On this 

 place the bone and meat mixture and 

 leave where the flies may have access to 

 it. In warm weather the fly eggs will 

 hatch in about two days' time and the 

 bone mixture will be partially dried up. 

 The larvae are adverse to strong light 

 and will be found to have gone to the 

 bran. They must now have something 

 to feed upon. Remove the bone mixture 

 and place thin slices of fresh liver on the 

 bran. Turn the bone mixture back on 

 top of the slices of liver. In a few hours 

 the larvae will all leave the bone mixture 

 and be under and feeding upon the liver. 

 After this the bone mixture should be 

 thrown away. In a day's time the liver 

 will be eaten to shreds and -must be re- 

 newed with a fresh supply of thinly 

 sliced liver or fresh meat, and so on each 

 day until the larvae are practically full 

 grown. This will take nearly a week's 

 time and they may then be fed to the 

 young pheasants. The larvae must be 

 fed on liver or meat as long as they are 

 on hand. As soon as they are matured 

 they will descend into the bran or dirt 

 and change into the pupa state. In feed- 

 ing the liver or meat, feed only enough 

 to be consumed in twenty-four hours' 

 time. The assimilating power of the 

 larvae is so great that it can change every 

 particle of meat or liver (except fibre) 

 to larvae, consequently there can be no 

 smell. The object in cutting the liver 

 or meat thin is that it all may be con- 

 sumed before having time to become 

 tainted. Keep an extra supply of liver 

 in a cool place, and a little charcoal, such 

 as is used to feed chickens, sprinkled over 

 and under it, will tend to keep it fresh. 

 Readers who do not find it necessary 

 to use larvae because there are plenty of 

 insects in their fields will do well to write 

 to the Spratt's Patent, Limited, Newark, 

 New Jersey, and ask for their little book- 

 let on feeding and rearing pheasants. All 

 the game keepers in America use the 

 Spratts foods, and many of them sue- 



