12 BULLETIN NO. 200, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
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 are 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 well moistened. The work of cleaning out 
the floor below the platform will require about one-half 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 this remains 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 refilled during 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 
