SQUEAMISH poultry lovers should look away now. Canadian researchers are evaluating powdered maggots as an inexhaustible and cheap source of protein for feeding turkeys.
They grew house fly larvae on oat hulls, a waste-product of the milling industry, then baked and ground up the maggots before feeding them to 48 young turkeys. Each gram of maggot powder contained almost twice as much protein as a conventional diet based on soy protein (Animal Feed Science and Technology, vol 105, p 225).
Birds fed neat maggot powder produced foul-smelling droppings, but adding the maggot powder to a balanced diet promises to…
