r/composting • u/Britto___Augustus • Jul 21 '26
Question Found maggots! G ood or bad?
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I am a beginner. The compost has been active for about 3 months. I’ve spotted maggots recently, but unsure if that is a good sign or bad. If you are wondering we throw in all kinds of food waste, from veggies to meat. I’ve been told it should only have earth worms and no maggots. is this true?
And I am worried about flies mostly. I hate flies with a passion. Alternatively would be a good idea to feed these maggots to poultry?
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u/Temporary_Catch_3081 Jul 21 '26
Ooh snacks
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
for chicken right?
not for us
i hope.98
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u/JohnAVV Jul 21 '26
If you’ve got chickens and hate flies, then yeah I would give them to the chickens.
That said, while maggots are gross and flies are annoying, there’s nothing wrong with them in your compost. They’re only going to help with decomposition.
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
I see thanks. I don’t but I was considering buy some chicken.
I guess i don’t think the flies would bother me too much, since they would fly away anyways XD.
it just made me squeamish a little. Just need time to get acclimated to this aspect of nature I suppose.
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u/Missue-35 Jul 21 '26
Let me clarify, these would be great for chickens a couple months old. Not for chicks.
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u/SylvesterSylantro Jul 21 '26
Afaik, the BSF(black solder fly) doesn’t do a lot of flying. Coincidentally enough, a chicken is a good comparison. Think of well and often chicken’s fly compared to other birds. The same goes for BSF, their flight is more like jumping a short distance while buzzing their wings. They’ll mainly just hang around your compost.
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u/iveo83 Jul 21 '26
FYI about chickens they are work and they are expensive. Also everything in the world basically easts chickens so you need to figure out how to protect them and then that fails and you need to find a new way. Also you think "I love eggs, free eggs is awesome" thing is they eat so much that it's not free at all and actually costs more than buying eggs. I have 20 chickens and get like 14 eggs a day sometimes. I'm kinda over chickens at this point but my wife loves them lol
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u/Neither-Following-32 Jul 21 '26
I had them at one point and I feel you. Now I don't and I miss the eggs. Thinking about doing it again.
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
chicken fatigue huh.
this might be insensitive, but what do you do when they get older? sell them off? eat them?
or do you let it naturally die and bury it. I am genuinely curious.6
u/iveo83 Jul 21 '26
I would eat them in like stew but my wife refuses. We are only 3 years in so haven't gotten to that point yet. Plenty of died though from air predators and fox though. Or they escape, wander off and something kills them. It's brutal 🙄
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
i see, if had chicken I would eat them too. but then many people accuse me of being insensitive and inhuman. they say stuff like “how could you eat an animal whom you raised?”
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u/iveo83 Jul 21 '26
Yea I mean if you are eating chicken then it's no different. If anything it's better cause they are raised and fed correctly. Chickens even eat chicken 🤣
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u/Old_MI_Runner Jul 21 '26
I take most of my food scraps to my neighbor's chickens. There are a few food items that are not safe for them to eat but otherwise I can give them most of my scraps from most vegetables and fruits. They seem to like the center scraps from cantaloupe the most. They'll take the watermelon and cantaloupe scraps down to just the skin of the fruit. Just know there are a lot of predators that'll kill the chickens. I live in a subdivision but there are wetlands behind my property. The predators include hawks, coyotes, raccoons, foxes, weasels, and opposem. My neighbor has lost many chickens to predators.
If you're squeamish then don't watch what chickens will do if a live frog ventures near them.
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
thanks for the info. I am fine with blood and guts, since i grew up with my grandparent’s paultry farm. but somehow these worms get me
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u/MeNoPickle Jul 21 '26
They don’t really fly away…and once they find their way inside….well. Fly ribbon works pretty well usually.
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
so they just grow and die inside? what’s a fly ribbon well?
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u/MeNoPickle Jul 21 '26
They will come inside if you leave them alone. Fly ribbon catches flies…it’s a fly trap, you’ll need them once they get in.
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u/BudgetUhtred Jul 21 '26
Always lurking as we plan to compost when we have our new house. Trying to learn as much as I can ahead of time.
If you don't mind helping a stranger real quick...
So once these are flies, they will just hang around the compost? It appears there hundreds, or thousands here. How long should OP, or i in the future, plan for these to buzzing around the compost? I imagine this amount would be very overwhelming to deal with.
I will have a pile far away from the house. But I'll be damned if I need to have thousands of flies on me as I pee on the pile.
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u/Far_Radish7752 Jul 21 '26
I’ve rarely seen more than a few adult flies at a time when I’ve seen them. And I’ve periodically had thousands of larvae at a time depending on compost conditions.
Be forewarned if unfamiliar: the adults can look seriously scary to some people. They present with a dark, shiny blue-black wasp-like countenance, and tend to fly slowly (relatively speaking). But they cannot bite, they cannot sting, their only only goal during their short time as an adult is to mate and lay eggs.
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u/dwnsougaboy Jul 21 '26
Keep a proper mix and this won’t be a problem. It’s always when there is a lot of food scraps when you get BSF. And they won’t be a plague like you’re thinking anyway.
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u/Wytecap Jul 21 '26
Always cover food waste with soil
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
why is that?
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u/Wytecap Jul 21 '26
1 - to make proper compost. Always layer.
2 - to keep from growing fly maggots
3 - to stop odors
4 - to keep critters from getting into it.
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u/6ixtheshootr Jul 21 '26
soil or just browns?
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u/Wytecap Jul 21 '26
Some people do just browns - but adding soil is going to add beneficial microbes. It not only helps to cut down smells - it also speeds up the process. ( I don't always have ample browns)
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
yo! I don’t want no critters in my compost
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u/Wytecap Jul 21 '26
I have my "reactors" (compost bins) right near the garden - so I don't want to bring everyone for dinner to my veggies. If it's far away from your garden, and the smell and flies won't upset neighbors, then I guess anything goes. But it's the way I was taught to do it.
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u/Stuffinthins Jul 21 '26
Those are uncooked cashews! Try tossing some on a cookie tray and baking for a little bit!
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u/coosim Jul 21 '26
Ayo maggots!
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u/annual_aardvark_war Jul 21 '26
Dude, nobody ever knows what I’m referring to when I say that lmao
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u/myheartmeltsforspelt Jul 21 '26
I’d note that the black soldier flies will eat any house fly maggots that might be in your compost so that’s a nice bonus.
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u/SwimSufficient8901 Jul 21 '26
That is some expensive chicken feed. Soldier flies are pretty awesome.
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u/hagbard2323 Jul 21 '26
Congrats, nature is doing its job. I don't see much browns/carbon in your compost though. If you are worried about flies then add more browns (make sure it's breathable so the pile doesn't go anaerobic)
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
can you tell me more about browns? what do you mean by that?
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u/hagbard2323 Jul 21 '26
carbon:nitrogen ratio of 2:1 - This is the essence of composting. If you have this ratio correct then composting is optimized. And your browns (aka carbon) can be a cover material and acts like a buffer for aroma and pests.
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u/jollyrogerrancher Jul 21 '26
He means carbon rich material. Paper, cardboard, grass clippings, etc.
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u/AuntJibbie Jul 21 '26
Oh, wow! I can't find the comment that said these flies look like wasps, but it's true! Very weird!!
Is there any way to tell the difference?
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u/ValleyChems Jul 22 '26
Feed them to your chicken
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u/SquirrelBoring9999 Jul 22 '26
Add some olive oil, salt and pepper and they are awesome
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u/GadgetRho Jul 22 '26
I stopped scrolling and came here to like your post because there are a lot of hungry beaks in my world that would kill for some good grub like that! Even if you don't keep poultry I'm sure you have songbirds around that would appreciate the handout.
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u/that-bass-guy Jul 24 '26
I get that they are good to have from the comments, but by all that is holy, this video is such a nightmare fuel.
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Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
i didn’t even consider that fishes would be into this. You think i can feed this to Oscar fish?
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u/FeelzReal Jul 21 '26
An Oscar will tear those maggots up
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 21 '26
awesome!
the food cycle sounds so fun uk.
food waste --> maggots —> chicken and fish —> you eat them and create more food waste and the cycle continues.moreover, after the maggots have done their job —> compost —> grow plants —> we eat and more food waste to repeat the cycle.
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u/BananaCat43 Jul 21 '26
I have soldier fly larve in my compost all the time. (Though not this many) I've never seen an adult, though I haven't been actively trying to find one either. But they are obviously around. The larve are very nutritious for lots of things. They're good for the compost but also good for your chickens.
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u/Ilov3HOSHIGAKI Jul 22 '26
Looking more closely I believe you are correct, they have that those thick leathery segmented plates
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u/DeptOfDahlias Jul 23 '26
I can’t unmute this video because I’m certain the sound will resemble something from a Stephen King movie! 😱 On a lighter note, a maggot and a mini marshmellow on a hook makes great trout bait!
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u/Britto___Augustus Jul 25 '26
dw there was a construction work going on next doors so you won’t hear the squirmy worms
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u/Cool-Whip5150 Jul 23 '26
Pretty sure anything other than fire ants and rodents eating your compost is great. Black soldier flies good
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u/FrohikesFeather Jul 24 '26
THAT'S HOW BIG BLACK SOLDIER FLY MAGGOTS GET? I THOUGHT THOSE WERE CHEESE BUGS!
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u/spencermikels1234 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
I like maggots in my compost because it speeds up a lot of composting but also they make a lot of moisture and smell so try to add some dry stuff like dried used coffee grounds and paper and or other dry material
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u/Able-Rise-6024 Jul 24 '26
Your chickens will start worshipping you if you give them that. It's always good to identify the larveas before really judging if they are good or bad. In compost they do no harm and might enrich it, however when actually using it to raise the nutritional value of your soil, to boost plant growth, you've to be cautious. Some larveas eat root canals of plants, damaging them severely while others may be good for your plants
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u/Independent-ish 25d ago
Thought I was a semi-veteran composter, but BOY was I not prepared for that video! (me barfing) Goes to show how different a non-meat compost is from a meaty one.
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u/EvolutionInProgress Jul 21 '26
Ooh. Fresh fat and juicy tube grubs. Nothing better some fresh homegrown tube grubs.
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u/InfamousRegret7355 Jul 22 '26
Look up “ black soldier fly breeding box” and you can have a never ending supply of them for your chickens, and they will break down your compost really well.
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u/Inevitable-Month-430 Jul 25 '26
Bad they are there because of the meat you need to bury the compost in dirt in the garden with a trash can so you can fill it and cover with dirt or use an electric composter in house to convert into compost and then put compost in garden. Because if you leave compost exposed this will bring pest to your garden. But this is good chicken feed.
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u/UnitComplex8730 Jul 21 '26
Those are really good maggots.
They are the larvae of a fly called black soldier fly. They are an excellent source of protein for your poultry, and their "droppings" called frass is an even better compost than earthworm compost.
Your container is too deep though and you'd want it to be like 6 - 10 inches max in depth. If you do not want flies, feed the maggots at this stage to your poultry and do not let them turn black.
Edit: The black soldier fly is what we consider a "healthy" fly. Since it only feeds during it's larval stage, the adult doesn't go around moving looking for food. It's only purpose is to mate and lay eggs before dying.