Features of the maggot breeding business. Breeding maggots as a business in Russia How to grow maggots on an industrial scale

Often, in search of business ideas, we go through many options, looking for “ours” among the mass of useful and not very useful information, but we very rarely look around, often finding ourselves in a situation that can be characterized by the proverb “You can see a speck in someone else’s eye, but you cannot see a log in your own.” " I’ll start from a little distance, to get a complete picture both from the consumer (read potential buyer) side and from the business itself.

This summer has turned out to be quite difficult on a personal level, on the one hand, roughness at work associated with factors that I personally cannot influence, on the other hand, the same friction in other aspects of life, all this cannot affect the general condition. As a result, to put it mildly, I began to “give up” and urgently needed psychological relief. After going through a lot of options, I came to the conclusion that fishing could be such an outlet. It sounds banal, of course, but the option turned out to be not bad, although I myself am not an experienced fisherman, it’s very suitable for unloading. The result was, if not regular, then quite frequent trips to both paid rates and “public” reservoirs. As the fisherman said, I don’t have much experience and “inclinations,” so fishing is quite primitive using the simplest fishing rods and bait. Anyone who has experienced fishing will not let you lie that the huge variety of baits and groundbaits in fishing stores is very good, but for most types of fish (the exception is the so-called “carp fish”) the best option is a banal worm and maggot. That is, we use bait to “lure” the fish, but the bait is still the same traditional worm and maggot. Of course, professional fishermen can smile and start a heated debate, but I repeat, from the point of view of the vast majority of the same amateurs, there is no better option.

Getting ready to go fishing every weekend, I, like a huge number of the same “lovers”, began my trip with a trip to the store for pollocks and an outing to “digging” worms. Everything seemed clear and quite banal, until a real emergency happened (I’m joking, of course), when I went into the store again, I heard the news: “There are no maggots and there won’t be for 10 days.” The news is certainly not comforting, but it interested me personally; in the end, the following turned out to be true:

– maggots for stores are imported from Poland (personally, I could never even think of such a thing);
– due to difficulties at the border, the next shipment was simply stopped and a vacuum was created;
– in our region no one is engaged in independent breeding of maggots.

Of course, the situation would be funny if it weren’t so sad; by the next weekend, even artificial maggots, which were positioned as a replacement, disappeared from store shelves. In addition, it was also not possible to “dig” worms on your own; the heat took its toll and the worms disappeared quite abruptly (in any case, in order to collect the required number, it took half a day to search). We quickly sorted out the worms and started purchasing them from a friend who was breeding them, but this didn’t work out with the maggots.

Actually, at this stage, I asked myself one simple and banal question: why is it profitable to breed maggots in Poland, taking into account transportation and “mandatory” payments at the border, but not here?

After studying the situation and reading a little specialized literature describing the life cycle of flies, maggots are actually fly larvae, I decided to check how it works. The goal can be characterized by whether it is possible to create a business for breeding maggots at home. Let me make a reservation right away: I did not conduct the experiment at home (I live in an apartment), but in the private sector using a closed room. Roughly speaking, a barn or other unused room with temperature control is suitable for such purposes.

Maggot business - home business with minimal investment (about other ideas with minimal investment)

Stage one of creating a home business with minimal investment, preparing premises for growing maggots

To begin with, I thought about a room for growing maggots and keeping the flies themselves. The main reason for most failures in home breeding of maggots for sale is precisely incorrect maintenance. The thing is that despite the unpretentiousness of the fly, changes in temperature greatly affect both the number of clutches and their size, the same thing happens to the larva itself. And to be honest, the smaller and slower they grow, the less money you earn.

Of course, I didn’t spend money on full-fledged ventilation equipment; I made do with a number of household appliances and a temperature sensor with the function of automatically turning on and off the “constructed” system. By the way, ventilation is one of the most expensive expense items; as it turns out, the release of ammonia during the growth and development of fly larvae (maggots) is very impressive. Of course, no one bred kilograms of larvae as an experiment, but even the amount that was there gave off a noticeable smell.

For the flies, we built two small boxes covered with fine mesh, meter by meter in size, with a hard bottom; for the larvae, we stocked up on several bags of sawdust and bought five plastic containers (I still don’t know why there are five).

Actually, this is where the list of initial equipment for business and preparation ends.

Stage two of creating a home business without investment, food for flies and maggots.

To be honest, after a long study of the “predilections” of flies, we took the simplest route, went to the nearest poultry farm and bought a dozen “crushed” chickens for a nominal fee. I immediately agreed with the foreman about “systematic” feed supplies.

Stage three of the business without investment at home, the formation of a broodstock for growing maggots.

We approached this issue from a purely scientific point of view and formed two herds at once:

First, with the help of simple flytraps, they caught meat flies in the area of the same poultry farm, and from the total number they tried to select only flies of a certain species. Of course, I’m not an expert, but large green flies were selected based on their appearance.
The second was bred from purchased maggots.

Interestingly, both the first and second turned out to be very similar.

Stage four of creating a home business without investment, the process of breeding and growing maggots.

Without lying for long, a chicken cut into several parts was placed in cages with flies, on which the flies quickly laid eggs.

Then they transferred the fly eggs, along with pieces of meat, into separate containers with sawdust. In which, in fact, the further development of maggots takes place at home, from the moment of hatching to the acquisition of a marketable form.

At this stage, we encountered a number of difficulties, ranging from the fact that the larvae stopped growing to the fact that they simply died, of course not all, but most of them. The fact is that in order to obtain the maximum result, it is necessary to provide the most comfortable conditions, and here you also need a certain humidity and prevent active rotting of the feed. To be honest, after the tenth attempt certain patterns began to emerge. Of course, we are still far from ideal results, but clear successes are also evident.

Ultimately, after two months of active work on “selection” and development of the correct methodology, we received the first “harvest” in the amount of one hundred grams of maggots grown at home.

Stage five of business ideas for breeding maggots at home.

Organization of product sales. With the sale, everything turned out quite simply; in the nearest store, the grown maggots were given away for sale. They buy Polish products for real money, but here it’s like on credit.

By the way, the maggots from the “green” flies were not very large, but they were not very different from their Polish counterparts.

In addition, I can say that when the maggot was brought to marketable condition, it was placed in the refrigerator, where it was stored for a fairly long period of time.

Actually, as a result of the experiment, we managed to start growing maggots at home and even make money from it, although we are not talking about profit yet. Of course, this business has a number of pros and cons:

Advantages of a home-based business based on maggots.

– To create a business for growing maggots, you need a minimum start-up capital.

– High turnover and profitability of the process of breeding maggots at home. De facto, from the moment of start (egg laying) to the receipt of marketable maggots, it takes 7-8 days.

– Possibility of creating such a business at home.

Disadvantages of a business idea for growing maggots.

– The need to create your own technology; in fact, you won’t find a ready-made “recipe” for breeding on the Internet; you need to try most of the processes yourself.

– Certain aesthetic issues, not everyone will be able or want to breed maggots in large quantities. Plus the smell itself from the “feeding” and vital processes of flies and maggots (at least the smell of ammonia).

As an epilogue

After assessing all the pros and cons, we clearly identified the enormous prospects of this market and the business idea of breeding maggots. We have now begun to conduct experiments with other types of flies to ensure year-round cultivation (we grow the so-called housefly). Of course, it is very far from industrial scale, but I am quite seriously considering the possibility of creating a small farm. If you have experience in breeding, I will be glad to hear your advice or share your experience. I will be very grateful.

Maggot is one of the most popular baits when catching peaceful white fish. It is loved by roach, bream, crucian carp and many other cyprinids. Now purchasing this bait is not a problem; blowfly larvae are sold in almost any fishing store.

But many fishermen have mastered their own production of maggots at home. Some grow them for themselves, others share them with friends, and others organize a small business using larvae.

Growing technology

Whether you grow larvae for yourself at home or in a large production facility for sale, the technology is the same. It differs only in the size of the premises, the amount of raw materials and the containers used.

Larval production can be divided into several stages:

Fresh or rotting organic matter is placed in the container. The container itself is placed in a cool, shaded room accessible to the blue blowfly. Other types of flies have smaller larvae.
After a couple of days, the flies lay eggs in groups on the product.
The container is closed with a lid with small holes made for air access.
The larvae begin to grow, and when they reach the desired “marketable” size, they are transferred to sawdust to remove the unpleasant odor.
After two days, the maggots are transferred again and stored. Keep the larvae at home in the refrigerator. If you miss the moment of moving them to a cold place, the larvae will pupate.

Growing substrate

Flesh flies, and other flies, lay their eggs on organic matter that begins to deteriorate. Moreover, this is not only meat, but also many other products available at home, for example:

meat by-products: liver, lung, intestines;
fish;
eggs;
cottage cheese;
spoiled vegetables;
bakery.

Based on my own experience, I note that the largest “Michurin” larvae are obtained from rotten chicken eggs.

Construction of a growing container

How to grow maggots so that they have less contact with unpleasant odors and sticky substrate? Many fishermen easily solved this problem by constructing special maggots that can be used at home. They are easy to make at home with your own hands. And breeding larvae in them does not require frequent human intervention.

The maggot trap consists of three containers placed one on top of the other.

The upper container is used for storing meat or fish. It has a holey lid and the same bottom.
The middle container also has a holey bottom; wood shavings or large sawdust are placed in it in a layer of 5-7 centimeters.
The lower container is used for clean maggots; sawdust is poured into it.

This design works like this:

We put the meat in the upper container and place it in a shaded place where flies can find the meat.
After two or three days we check, and if we see that the flies have laid eggs, we cover the top of the structure with a lid and put it in place.
The hatched maggots grow and, having reached a marketable size, tend to pupate. They fall down and penetrate through the holes into the middle container.
Having passed through a layer of sawdust or shavings, they are cleaned and fall into the lower vessel, and from there they are removed and packaged in jars that are taken fishing.

The entire production of maggots takes from a week to ten days, depending on the air temperature and the speed at which the blowfly lays its eggs on the prepared substrate.

Other production methods

Growing maggots at home can be simplified even more, and there are also original ways to breed them.

In a plastic bottle

This type of maggot can be easily made at home or right on the shore of a pond after fishing. Take a plastic bottle and cut it in half into two parts. Pour a layer of sawdust 5-7 centimeters thick into the lower part. Unscrew the cap and insert the top of the bottle into the bottom, neck down.

In this case, the neck should not reach the sawdust by a couple of centimeters. Next, we put a dead fish, a half-eaten egg, sausage or meat at the top and place the “device for producing larvae” in the shade in a secluded place. When we arrive fishing a week later, we take out the structure and select ready-made larvae.

Above the water

This method of growing is also interesting. On a pond you frequent, choose a tree with a branch overhanging the water. Attach a jar with a holey bottom to this branch. Place a fish or piece of meat in the jar.

Hatching maggots will fall into the water and attract fish to this place. While fishing, all you have to do is throw your tackle with maggots on a hook under a branch and catch fish that are accustomed to feeding on larvae. Make new stockings from time to time, then you will not need to take care of the bait all season.

From eggs

The largest larvae for fishing are obtained from raw or rotten eggs. One fisherman aptly described them as “Michurinsky”. The technology for producing giant maggots is very simple, but it is better not to use it at home because of the very specific “fragrant” smell.

We take a container and pour a layer of sawdust five to ten centimeters into it, for example, a low old saucepan.
We place the eggs vertically in the sawdust, strengthen them with sawdust so that they do not fall.
We break the top of the shell and wait for the flies to arrive.
Each egg hatches 20-30 larvae, but all of them are “Michurinsky”, some of them can get out of the shell into the sawdust.

Maggot farming

This can be called the private production of larvae for sale. Growing maggots on a large scale is only possible if there is a separate heated and well-ventilated room; in the home conditions of a city apartment, only a very enthusiastic and not squeamish person can afford this.

The premises are equipped with cages for keeping flies and containers for hatching maggots. Cages for keeping blue flies are wooden or metal frames covered with fine mesh or gauze, which are easily assembled with your own hands from wooden slats or profile metal. Special sleeves are installed in the walls, similar to those used in biological laboratories, through which cages are serviced: installation and removal of containers with substrate.

Maggots can be of various designs, but the principle described above applies to them. However, some maggots are left for pupation and further restoration or expansion of the blue blowfly population.

In the room for raising larvae, it is necessary to install a refrigerator to store products ready for sale.

Industrial cultivation

The production of maggots for fishing on a large scale is essentially no different from the farm option described above. Only in production there is a greater scope, and they also monitor the selection of flies to obtain higher quality offspring.

It should be noted that in factories for the production of larvae, substances are used to color and flavor them.

Of course, you can paint maggots at home, but this requires both time and financial costs. In addition, sometimes there is simply not enough time for this. And some fishermen do not recognize painted bait at all, considering painting an unnecessary whim, saying that fish bite well on maggots anyway.

Features of entrepreneurial activity for the production and sale of maggots for fishing on various scales

Currently, on the Internet you can find quite a large amount of materials devoted to such topics as growing maggots at home or breeding these larvae for sale to fishermen in order to earn additional income.

When reading such articles, one involuntarily comes to the conclusion that their authors simply stole information from each other and, with minor copyright changes, posted it on their own resources. Moreover, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the advice and recommendations of these authors have nothing to do with reality, and only mislead readers interested in this issue.

Judging by the number of search queries asked by netizens on the topic of maggot production, there are a great many who want to start their production in the vastness of Russia. Moreover, Internet fraud for selling miraculous technologies for growing maggots without investment with cosmic super-profits has even begun to gain momentum.

Having followed the same path proposed by numerous authors of such opuses and Internet courses, most of the beginning producers will simply abandon this type of entrepreneurial activity, and only a few can achieve success, who will spend a certain number of years of their lives on developing their own growing technology.

I’ll say right away that the profitability of such production really exceeds all decent limits, but there are also many pitfalls, each of which can completely discourage one from engaging in such a business - despite all its and.

To begin with, I would like to talk about common misconceptions regarding this type of agricultural production (and it is exactly that, like raising pigs or breeding rabbits).

So, common myths about maggot production:

1. "Maggot: business from nothing"

* Electricity;

* Thermal energy;

* Consumables: sawdust, bags, jars, bran, starch, sugar, growing substrate, dyes, some chemicals, etc.

* Premises prepared and planned properly;

* Special equipment: refrigerators, freezers and much more.

* Time for production, packaging, sales;

* Labor.

No matter how it is!

Fly larvae, like any other living creature, require special conditions for existence and development.

Creating such conditions for its comfortable development, and even with minimal labor costs, is the secret of technology.

If these guys don’t like something, then they are able to leave any growing containers in a matter of minutes and you most likely will not be able to put them back together again.

They will crawl into every imaginable crack and within a week you will have a swarm of flies in your nursery. These flies, in turn, will lay eggs on the substrate in which other larvae develop; the maggots, as a result, will turn out to be of different sizes and not at all marketable.

Also, if the growing conditions for maggots are unfavorable (high or low humidity, overcrowding, temperature inconsistency, etc.), then the maggots will either be too small, different in size, or even die. Meat or fish, if certain conditions are not met, may rot, and maggots, contrary to popular belief, really do not like rotten raw materials.

And these are not all the problems associated with the “simplicity” of growing fly larvae.

It is forbidden.

If we consider this business as a source of income.

I think that now there are few people who want to do this business at home on the balcony, for the sake of a handful of larvae of dubious quality, moreover, obtained from flies that were not clear in what garbage dump.

If we talk about a business of any acceptable scale for making money, then the main problem immediately arises:

A specific odor emanating from the ventilation system. You may not have a smell inside the premises, but outside...

If it is carried out according to all the rules, then there is no smell of rotten meat. But there is a strong smell of ammonia and the neighbors in the garden will clearly not be happy. Especially if your production volumes are significant.

At most, they will be patient for a month and then in a friendly crowd they will go to the authorities with complaints.

There are only two ways out in such a situation: do not locate such production within populated areas or install an expensive biofilter in the ventilation system. All.

But processing manure into fertilizer with the help of fly larvae on a personal plot is easy.

The fact is that larvae that feed on various plant debris and maggots that eat meat or fish are completely different. And they release into the atmosphere incomparably different amounts of substances that smell unpleasant to humans.

But the commercial value of larvae grown in manure or droppings for fishing stores is questionable. As a rule, they pupate very quickly.

But they can be fed to chickens. They can be dried and fed with flour from them to whatever you like. By the way, even cats and dogs happily gobble up this product on both cheeks!

“As for the type of flies that will lay larvae, from a logical point of view it makes no difference what they will be.”

The logic, of course, is ironclad, but has nothing to do with reality.

The reality is that the type of fly used to produce the larvae is critical.

The basic characteristics of commercial products, such as size and longevity, as well as ease of cultivation, depend on it.

If your maggot pupates the next day after it arrives in stores, then they will very quickly tell you: “Goodbye.”

"This type of business seems very simple, but still this niche is almost empty. Many fishing stores work with suppliers from Poland"

Business, in fact, is not as simple as it seems.

The niche in Russia has not been empty for a long time, and practically no maggots have been imported from Poland to Russia for five or six years. It is still imported to Ukraine and, last year, it was imported to Belarus - in 2014 it was banned for sanitary and epidemiological reasons.

The market in Russia is mainly divided between several large manufacturers located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Lipetsk-Belgorod, and Volgograd.

The greatest competition is observed in the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation and in the Volga regions.

But the regions of Siberia, the Urals, and the northern territories of our country are experiencing a very acute shortage of this type of bait. Fishing maggots get there only by plane from Moscow and St. Petersburg and they cost several times more there than in other regions of the Russian Federation.

It is in these areas that I would recommend locating maggot production facilities for fishermen. Due to the absence of major competitors and with a competent approach to business, success is guaranteed.

Before deciding to start creating an enterprise (no matter what the scale) for growing maggots for sale to fishermen, you need to answer the most important question for yourself - WHOM TO SELL?

Sales market

The success of your endeavor and the return on investment will depend on the availability of a sales market.

On average, a small store sells 100-200 cans of white maggots per week and half as many colored ones. The turnover of large stores can reach up to 2000 cans per week or more.

After spending a certain amount of time, you will approximately know what scale of production needs to be organized in order to achieve your goals.

Below, I will give prices for fishing maggots for the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation:

Name	Wholesale price, rub.	Retail price. rub.
White maggot packaged in 30 ml jars	12-14	30-35
Dyed maggot packaged in 30 ml jars	14-16	30-50
White maggot, liter	350-400	600-700
Colored maggot, liter	450-500	700-800
White maggot, kg	500-550
Dyed maggot, kg	600-700

The sales scheme for fishing maggots by all manufacturers is usually as follows:

An intermediary wholesaler purchases unpackaged products from the manufacturer in liters or kilograms, who then packages the larvae as he pleases in containers at his discretion. It often happens - in jars with the logo of a third-party manufacturer and then distributed to retail outlets in the region. Typically, there are 2-3 such intermediary wholesalers in the regions.

As a rule, manufacturers tend to have their own dealers in the region in order to operate under their own brand. But, since during the peak summer months manufacturers are not able to meet the market demands for product quality (usually everyone wants larger maggots in the summer) due to capacity overload, dealers are trying to find a supplier who can provide them with a product that meets their requirements . There is a constant migration of customers from one manufacturer to another and back again when conditions or product quality changes over time.

Some owners of large and medium-sized stores and chains prefer to purchase already packaged branded products directly from the manufacturer, and do not use the services of intermediaries. But packaged goods take up more volume and their delivery, accordingly, is more expensive - due to an increase in the number of boxes. Delivery people - bus drivers and train conductors - charge a certain price for one box. Actually, this is why such products are not popular with intermediaries who seek to reduce their costs, including transport costs. Also, they usually put less maggots in the container than the manufacturer. By obtaining from one liter or kilogram of maggots a larger number of jars or containers for retail sale, compared to the direct manufacturer.

But their share in the country as a whole is insignificant. The culture of feeding maggots in Russia, unfortunately, unlike Europe and America, is still in its infancy.

The cost of producing one liter (or kilogram) of maggots is calculated using the formula:

(Cost of 1 kg of raw materials *2.5) + payroll + energy costs

Thus, if there are no plans to attract third-party labor, and the raw materials will be conditionally free (for example, the death of chickens from a nearby poultry farm), then the cost of a liter of biomass will only be equal to the amount you will pay for electricity and heating, and this is a ridiculous amount.

The cost of a labeled jar (30 ml) with maggots for retail sale will be no more than 3 rubles.

For reference: one liter of maggots produces about 60-70 jars of maggots for sale in stores.

At first glance, everything is perfect! There are DOLLARS in the eyes!!!

But it is at this point that it is worth talking about the pitfalls that you will definitely encounter if you start doing this business.

Maggots are living creatures that require increased attention to their person and special conditions for cultivation, storage, pre-sale preparation, and transportation.

Owners of fishing stores and their fishing clients have now become very picky and will not buy anything. Therefore, the most important thing that is required from you and your production is the quality of the product.

Quality is ensured by compliance with all necessary conditions, starting from the process of obtaining eggs from flies and ending with the transfer of goods from the warehouse to the fishing store.

Let's start with flies.

Let's say you have chosen to keep a species of flies whose maggots are large in size and, if properly grown and stored, are capable of not pupating for a long time and not dying during storage.

But flies are susceptible to various diseases and can be destroyed by various small insect pests. If the necessary sanitary standards are violated, it is guaranteed that sooner or later you will get situations like these:

Situation No. 1

This evening there are a lot of flies in the cage, but in the morning there are only a few flies left - the rest are lying on the floor without signs of life.

What to do?

You take a new batch of maggots, leave them for pupation in a warm place in order to breed a new population of flies, wait a week for the flies to hatch from the pupae, wait five to seven days for them to start laying eggs (and time passes, stores demand goods - after all, they have refused services other suppliers..! The owners are nervous - the client is leaving for other stores..! You are nervous - you have let people down, store owners are looking for new stable suppliers..! Hell).

And then the fly begins to lay eggs. You are looking forward to a good harvest of larvae and... this evening there are a lot of flies in the cage, and in the morning there are only a few flies left - the rest are lying on the floor without signs of life.

That's it, they've arrived. What to do? ...Unclear.

Situation No. 2

This evening there are a lot of flies in the cage, but in the morning there are only a few flies left - the rest are lying on the floor without signs of life. The room with flies is full of small black midges that crawl into your mouth, get into your hair...

What to do?

You take a new batch of maggots, leave them for pupation in a warm place to breed a new population of flies, wait a week for the flies to hatch from the pupae... You wait a week... You wait another... But the fly still does not hatch.

Finally, your patience bursts - you pick off the edge of the pupa with your fingernail and see inside it little white maggots that have eaten your future fly from the inside (and time goes by, stores are demanding goods - after all, they have refused the services of other suppliers..! Store owners are nervous - the client is leaving to other stores..!You are nervous - you have let people down, store owners are looking for new stable suppliers... Hell).

They sailed again. And money was invested in equipment. Yes, and you feel that you can make good money... and there is demand... But...

Situation No. 3

This evening there are a lot of flies in the cage, and the next morning there are several flies in the cage - the rest are running around the workshop.

How so? You remember very well that after completing all the manipulations in the cages yesterday, you tied your sleeves securely!

You examine the cells from all sides and find them in gauze/mesh, etc. decent sized torn holes. Where are they from?

Yes, it’s just the mice who decided to enjoy the sugar that you carefully placed in the home of the sweet-toothed flies. Mice also have a sweet tooth.

What to do?

You patch up the holes, take a new batch of maggots, leave them for pupation in a warm place to breed a new population of flies, wait a week for them to hatch... Well, and then continue according to the scheme...

Situation No. 4

Today you harvested a great harvest of thick maggots (from the I-would-eat-it-yourself series). Having processed them according to all the rules of science and technology, you put them in refrigerators, joyfully call your customers, informing them that a gorgeous shipment of goods awaits them tomorrow. Going home...

The next day, entering the room, you notice a suspiciously large number of larvae crawling perhaps on the ceiling. You frantically open the refrigerator doors and... from there you are blasted with heat like from an oven! There are minimal maggots in refrigerators, and almost all of them are dead.

What to do? Have you already boasted of a good product?!

Cursing everything in the world, you begin to sweep with a broom in all corners in the hope of saving at least something. You cast a spell over the collected larvae - winnow and sift.

Finally, you send what you managed to catch to the store.

A couple of days later there was a sad message from there: - “The maggot has pupated”

What is the reason?

The reason is ancient refrigerators, produced when your parents had not even thought of drawing your sketch and, perhaps, did not yet know each other.

Having filled this venerable unit to the brim with squirming larvae, you couldn’t even think that it would turn from a refrigerator into a thermos.

Maggots release an enormous amount of heat due to friction!

What to do?

You need to buy normal refrigeration equipment! Designed for your volumes.

Why did you take the plunge?

Yes, because if the larva overheats (at least not for long) at any of the stages (growing, storage, transportation), it starts the mechanism of turning into a fly. It is practically impossible to stop him.

Situation No. 5

Today you harvested a great harvest of thick maggots and poured them into containers to clean the intestines of the larvae from food debris to give them a marketable appearance. You joyfully call your customers, informing them that tomorrow they will receive a shipment of incomparable goods.

The next day, looking into the containers where, by definition, there should be maggots, you find beetles swarming there: black, striped, healthy and small, but no maggots...

They ate your maggots.

There can be many situations like these.

But I won’t scare you with horror stories anymore. The main thing is that a person who decides to take up such a business as growing maggots for sale to fishermen understands that this is not a simple matter and money will not fall out of the sky by itself.

Do not believe the promises on the Internet that if you buy a disc on the Internet for three to twenty thousand rubles with a miracle technology, you are guaranteed to take the first lines of the Forbes list in a couple of months, with absolutely no investment!

Why do you think nothing new has appeared on the Internet over the past ten years?

Yes, because people who learned how to do this spent a lot of money and time to master all the intricacies of this very profitable craft, and went abroad to study (The author spent several tens of millions of Russian rubles on this science).

Having acquired knowledge at such a high price, no one wants to share it with others on a voluntary basis!

Therefore, if you still firmly decide to organize a business for breeding commercial maggots for sale to fishermen, you will need to invest not twenty to thirty thousand rubles, but at least several million.

The amount of costs varies greatly (in one direction or another) depending on many factors. A significant impact on your costs will be the presence/absence of a heated suitable room in your property, a plot of land for construction with (or without) communications, etc.

The cost structure looks something like this:

* Drawing up a business project;

* in the Russian Federation or abroad;

* Construction/reconstruction of premises;

* Installation of communications (electricity, water supply, heating, drainage);

* Costs of purchasing equipment;

* Purchase of consumables;

* Production costs;

* Costs of personnel training.

At all stages, you simply need expert advice on these issues.

Believe me, in such a matter as growing maggots, there are no trifles! Ignorance of this or that nuance can result in the collapse of the entire business project and lost money.

Such production is easily scalable and having mastered the technique of producing relatively small volumes, you can then significantly increase your enterprise without high costs.

So, think, consider... And good luck to you!

Serebryansky D.N.

www.site

2015

Breeding and growing white and colored maggots is a very simple task, but the main thing is that their breeding is accompanied by a specific smell (ammonia), which is usually the main reason that deters people from agricultural production.

Fortunately, these times are long behind us, and white and pink maggots have become a classic bait, grown not only in industrial conditions. Maggots have become unusually popular due to their price, availability, are the larval forms of insects, belong to the same family, and are undemanding to storage.

At first glance, white and pink maggots differ in size. The white worm is almost twice the size of the pink worm. Both are very effective and there is no type of fish that doesn’t like them. But before becoming an effective bait, certain procedures are necessary: removing the smell of ammonia; increasing the hardness of maggots.

Maggots can be used in a variety of areas, but mainly in fisheries. The food for maggots must be crushed quite finely and if you want them to be red, then add a little chopped beets to the mass, and if you want to get a yellow mass, then add turmeric. Chicken offal, fish offal, meat, chicken egg and many other options are used as food, the main thing is the desire to experiment.

Room and containers for breeding maggots

The best premises for a maggot nursery will be dark rooms and basements.

Then properly prepare the maggot for storage and sale. It is preferable to choose a transparent container for breeding so that you can see what is happening inside.

The container must be covered at all times. Make holes in the lid of the container.

Pour sawdust with yellow sand into the bottom of plastic transparent containers (you can take transparent containers from herring, which is sold in supermarkets) or any transparent containers that have a lid. The sawdust should be from hardwood trees so as not to scare away the fish with the smell of resin. Place 2-3 large stones or pieces of deciduous trees, place a piece of cardboard or a sieve on them, such that the maggots then fall onto the prepared mixture of sand and sawdust. Place the prepared crushed food on pieces of cardboard and a sieve and allow the flies to lay their larvae.

Quantity and quality

If you want to have more worms, then you need 5-6 flies per kilogram of meat, close the container with the flies and leave them for one hour, then release them and close the bucket tightly. If you want to get more maggots, leave the bucket with the prepared crushed food open longer so that as many flies as possible lay their larvae, then close it. In a week, maggots will appear.

The size of maggots depends on the ratio of their number to the amount of food. If there are few larvae and a lot of food, then the maggots are large and vice versa - there are many larvae and many small worms.

How to grow large specimens

If you need large large maggots, then place a piece of meat or fish in a dark basement and leave it until the next day. Usually, the next day, you will see several white spots on the meat, this means that flies have been there and have laid their larvae. Leave only two white spots so that the maggots have enough food to fully develop. To prevent flies from laying more maggots, you must isolate the meat from them. It is best to wrap the meat in paper, then put it in a container and bury it in the ground for a while. In a week, the maggots will grow and acquire large sizes; some individuals can reach a length of up to 3 cm. When going fishing in a week, you should always remember this.

Maggot care - wash the worms!

Caring for maggots is very simple. Maggots should not be allowed to be unattractive and accompanied by an unpleasant ammonia odor. To prevent this, you need to wash the worms. Before you start washing the product, you need to free it from sawdust and sand.

You just need to open the bucket of maggots and pour them onto a mesh sieve or cheesecloth to get rid of old sawdust and sand, and sift the sand and sawdust with vigorous movements.

Wind can also be used to remove sawdust. In this case, the larvae are poured into the container from a height of 1.5 meters. But the wind will not be able to separate all the sand and sawdust.

Therefore, the maggots are sifted again until worms and fragments of sawdust that did not pass through the sieve remain on the surface of the sieve.

The sieve is then lowered onto the container and waiting for the live larvae to pass through. In this way, dead larvae are separated from living ones.

Prepare in advance hot water (not boiling water), a container, a stocking or mesh filter, a towel, a diffuser and cornstarch. Warm water is poured into a clean, empty container, a few drops of dishwashing liquid are added to it, then maggots separated from sawdust are poured out of another container, which are carefully washed, stirring them with your hand. The entire operation should not take more than 30 seconds. The worms are then drained into stockings or strainers and rinsed under cold running water under the tap until no dirt or scum remains.

Spread a towel and pour maggots onto them.

Gently blot them to get rid of excess water. If you notice that the larvae are still wet, dry them a little. Then add some cornstarch or attractor (a dry bait or flavoring agent, usually of natural origin) to the container. There must be only a small amount of attractor, otherwise the buttress will die.

Washed and clean maggot larvae will have a pleasant color and pleasant smell.

Hardness of maggots

The time it takes to bait a maggot on a hook to catch fish should be kept to a minimum. To do this, the bait must have a hard skin and thus remain on the hook for as long as possible.

Before fishing or fishing competitions, you should transfer the maggots to a container with cornstarch. The cornstarch will stick to the larvae's skin and become thicker. But one super-hard grub can catch several fish. This hardening and curing will take about two weeks, so it must be planned in advance. Maggots that have a hard skin should be stored in a cold basement. Larvae are not as active in a cold room and corn starch remains on their skin for a long time. At a temperature of 2-4 degrees, maggots remain motionless. They should be stored in small boxes.
Near water, maggot fish bait should be protected from the sun to prevent it from deteriorating and dying.

Maggot is an indispensable fishing tackle for most who like to sit with a fishing rod…. Scientifically, a maggot is called a fly larva. In fishing stores that sell baits and lures for fish, you can find three types of larvae: blue blowfly, green fly and regular housefly. The larvae of the latter turn out to be very small and very inconvenient for attachment. The method of growing all species is absolutely the same.

Growing technology

The industrial production of maggots is very specific and is not as simple as it seems at first glance.

To obtain maggots, securely closed rooms are used to prevent foreign flies and other unnecessary living creatures from entering them. The temperature in the room should be warm (+24-27 degrees) and constant. Flies are fed sugar and other sweet food. Then pieces of meat are placed in the room, in which the flies lay their eggs in heaps. Within a day, each pile yields a decent number of larvae: from 200 to 500 pieces.

The larvae are then placed in large containers up to 5 meters wide. From one such container you can get up to 50 liters of maggots. The larvae are fed animal, poultry or fish meat. In just 7 days, a marketable maggot grows from a small larva. From 100 kg of meat you can grow 50 liters of maggots. To make the maggot red (and by default, it is white), a special coloring agent is added to the meat - rhodamine B.

The final stage is collecting and sorting maggots. As soon as the larvae have gained the required weight, the pieces of meat rise above the collection containers, into which the maggots fall. The larvae are then sifted through a sieve to remove foreign impurities. The maggots, ready for sale, are placed in small boxes with sawdust and sent to the shelves of fishing stores.

How much can you earn?

If you find a wholesale buyer of maggots in large quantities, the business will bring good income. In what other agricultural business can you grow 300-500 kg of finished, and far from cheap, products out of nothing in 7 days?

The cost of one liter of maggots at the wholesale price is at least 900 rubles. In 7 days, from 1 ton of meat we can get 500 liters of maggots. In just a week, revenue will be 450 thousand rubles.

In England, some farmers produce simply unrealistic volumes - up to 20,000 liters of maggots per week. If we convert it into our rubles, we get simply cosmic profits: up to 18 million rubles. On an ordinary fly larva. And you say the most profitable business is oil and coffee...

Business pitfalls

Despite all the benefits of the business, the complexity of its organization can be the very stumbling block that stops most novice entrepreneurs.

Here are just a few reasons that make commercial cultivation of maggots difficult:

1. Strong smell. Fly larvae produce incredible amounts of sulfur dioxide and ammonia. This smell is not only very unpleasant, but also harmful to humans. It is for this reason that European countries closed most of the farms that used the simplest technologies for producing maggots.

2. Labor force. Not everyone will agree to work in such a specific production. Therefore, you will either have to pay high wages or be prepared for high staff turnover.

3. Where can I get raw materials for growing? Also a relevant question. Tons of meat will need to be supplied weekly. Buying fresh meat is expensive; you need to look for a product that is not entirely fresh. Perhaps butcher shops, livestock farms and other enterprises whose activities are related to the circulation of meat and poultry products will help in resolving this issue.

4. Search for marketing channels for maggots. It’s not at all easy to sell 1000 liters of maggots. Here you have two ways to sell maggots: sell it to wholesale resellers at discounted prices or arrange supplies to retail chains on your own. The second option is more profitable, but will require huge labor and time costs. You can't do it without good managers. You will need to visit hundreds of fishing stores, and perhaps not in one large city. And not everywhere you will be welcomed with open arms. Most stores have been working with reliable maggot suppliers for a long time, and they are satisfied with everything.

But many fishermen have mastered their own production of maggots at home. Some grow them for themselves, others share them with friends, and others organize a small business using larvae.

Growing technology

Larval production can be divided into several stages:

Fresh or rotting organic matter is placed in the container. The container itself is placed in a cool, shaded room accessible to the blue blowfly. Other types of flies have smaller larvae.
After a couple of days, the flies lay eggs in groups on the product.
The container is closed with a lid with small holes made for air access.
The larvae begin to grow, and when they reach the desired “marketable” size, they are transferred to sawdust to remove the unpleasant odor.
After two days, the maggots are transferred again and stored. Keep the larvae at home in the refrigerator. If you miss the moment of moving them to a cold place, the larvae will pupate.

Growing substrate

Flesh flies, and other flies, lay their eggs on organic matter that begins to deteriorate. Moreover, this is not only meat, but also many other products available at home, for example:

meat by-products: liver, lung, intestines;
fish;
eggs;
cottage cheese;
spoiled vegetables;
bakery.

Based on my own experience, I note that the largest “Michurin” larvae are obtained from rotten chicken eggs.

Construction of a growing container

The maggot trap consists of three containers placed one on top of the other.

The upper container is used for storing meat or fish. It has a holey lid and the same bottom.
The middle container also has a holey bottom; wood shavings or large sawdust are placed in it in a layer of 5-7 centimeters.
The lower container is used for clean maggots; sawdust is poured into it.

This design works like this:

We put the meat in the upper container and place it in a shaded place where flies can find the meat.
After two or three days we check, and if we see that the flies have laid eggs, we cover the top of the structure with a lid and put it in place.
The hatched maggots grow and, having reached a marketable size, tend to pupate. They fall down and penetrate through the holes into the middle container.
Having passed through a layer of sawdust or shavings, they are cleaned and fall into the lower vessel, and from there they are removed and packaged in jars that are taken fishing.

The entire production of maggots takes from a week to ten days, depending on the air temperature and the speed at which the blowfly lays its eggs on the prepared substrate.

Other production methods

Growing maggots at home can be simplified even more, and there are also original ways to breed them.

In a plastic bottle

Above the water

From eggs

We take a container and pour a layer of sawdust five to ten centimeters into it, for example, a low old saucepan.
We place the eggs vertically in the sawdust, strengthen them with sawdust so that they do not fall.
We break the top of the shell and wait for the flies to arrive.
Each egg hatches 20-30 larvae, but all of them are “Michurinsky”, some of them can get out of the shell into the sawdust.

Maggot farming

Maggots can be of various designs, but the principle described above applies to them. However, some maggots are left for pupation and further restoration or expansion of the blue blowfly population.

In the room for raising larvae, it is necessary to install a refrigerator to store products ready for sale.

Industrial cultivation

It should be noted that in factories for the production of larvae, substances are used to color and flavor them.

- maggots for stores are imported from Poland (personally, I could never even think of this);
- due to difficulties at the border, the next shipment was simply stopped and a vacuum was created;
- in our region no one is engaged in independent breeding of maggots.

Maggot business - home business with minimal investment (about other ideas with minimal investment here)

Stage one of creating a home business with minimal investment, preparing premises for growing maggots

Actually, this is where the list of initial equipment for business and preparation ends.

Stage two of creating a home business without investment, food for flies and maggots.

Stage three of the business without investment at home, the formation of a broodstock for growing maggots.

We approached this issue from a purely scientific point of view and formed two herds at once:

First, with the help of simple flytraps, they caught meat flies in the area of the same poultry farm, and from the total number they tried to select only flies of a certain species. Of course, I’m not an expert, but large green flies were selected based on their appearance.
The second was bred from purchased maggots.

Interestingly, both the first and second turned out to be very similar.

Stage four of creating a home business without investment, the process of breeding and growing maggots.

Without lying for long, a chicken cut into several parts was placed in cages with flies, on which the flies quickly laid eggs.

Stage five of business ideas for breeding maggots at home.

By the way, the maggots from the “green” flies were not very large, but they were not very different from their Polish counterparts.

In addition, I can say that when the maggot was brought to marketable condition, it was placed in the refrigerator, where it was stored for a fairly long period of time.

Advantages of a home-based business based on maggots.

To create a business for growing maggots, you need a minimum start-up capital.

High turnover and profitability of the process of breeding maggots at home. De facto, from the moment of start (egg laying) to the receipt of marketable maggots, it takes 7-8 days.

The possibility of creating such a business at home.

Disadvantages of a business idea for growing maggots.

The need to create your own technology; in fact, you won’t find a ready-made “recipe” for breeding on the Internet; you need to try most of the processes yourself.

Certain aesthetic issues, not everyone will be able or want to breed maggots in large quantities. Plus the smell itself from the “feeding” and vital processes of flies and maggots (at least the smell of ammonia).

As an epilogue

Statistics show that every fourth man who is interested in fishing considers himself a successful fisherman and can spend quite a lot of money on equipment, for example, on bait and various accessories for fishing rods. For many lovers of this entertainment, it is not even the catch that is important, but the “process” itself.

Breeding maggots at home and then selling them as bait is a business option that requires virtually no start-up costs to start. This is a great business idea for fishing enthusiasts or people who have summer cottages and are looking for additional income.

What are maggots?

For experienced fishermen, this is not a mystery: they know well why maggots are needed for fishing. Breeding them as a business is of more interest to those who want to start their own business with a minimal investment of start-up capital.

If you have a rich imagination and a heightened sense of disgust, you are better off starting your own business in a different direction. However, in reality, maggots are just fly larvae.

For the most part, the larvae of only a few species of these insects are used for fishing:

meat (blue);
green;
indoor (ordinary).

At the same time, breeding maggots on an industrial scale and in conditions close to home ones are almost the same: for this, the process of rotting food remains is used.

Despite the fact that every year they come up with new bait for fish, none of them have yet managed to surpass maggots, which are something of a delicacy for fish.

It is enough to place several pieces of meat or other leftover food in a warm room where there are flies inside, so that within a week you can collect maggots ready for sale.

How to set up a room for growing maggots

The farther the “base” where maggots will be grown is located from residential premises, the fewer problems you will have with your neighbors. During growth, maggots emit an unpleasant odor of ammonia, and if there are 50, 100 or even more larvae, the smell will spread throughout the area and this will naturally cause dissatisfaction among neighbors.

It follows from this that the premises you need must be located in the country or in the village. By the way, here it will be possible to breed worms- they are also in great demand among fishermen.

Of course, in order to increase your profits, you need to create conditions that are optimal for the appearance of high-quality maggots and increasing their growth rate. These conditions can be achieved in three ways:

Temperature: from 23 to 25 degrees Celsius must be maintained in the room at all times. “Jumps” in temperature significantly affect the size of the larvae, although they are unlikely to kill them;
The air humidity in the room should be maintained at about 50-70%, since these are ideal conditions for rapid reproduction of larvae;
Ventilation of the room: ammonia, which is released by maggots, is not only harmful and unpleasant for people, but also toxic. However, you should not ventilate too much, as the larvae do not like this.

In addition to the above, you should carefully close the room so that foreign flies and other insects that like to chew rotten meat do not penetrate there.

How maggots are bred

Flies are attracted to rotten meat (fish or poultry) not only by its pleasant taste, but also by the opportunity to lay their larvae in an ideal environment. Few people know that one fly can lay up to 300 larvae per day. Storing and breeding maggots as a business (you can see the video below) is in practice carried out in large containers that can be easily made from plastic bottles.

Before you start growing maggots, you should stock up on a significant amount of sawdust, since the larvae require the absorption of excess moisture.

On an industrial scale, containers up to 5 m wide are used; for home use, they may be slightly smaller. From the container you can get up to 60 liters of maggots, which grow to adulthood within a week and can be sold for bait.

To collect the “harvest,” the pieces where maggots live are lifted above prepared plastic containers and shaken a little. This causes the larvae to fall off, and after this they should be further sifted to clean them. After this, the maggots wait in the wings in sawdust, which is poured into bottles so that they remove excess moisture.

There is also summer economical method of breeding maggots. For this, regular-sized bottles are used, which must be cut so that the lower part is almost twice as large as the upper. The cork is twisted and the cut off top is inserted into the bottom. Food is placed at the top, which will attract flies, and sawdust is poured into the bottom. Adult larvae will get there, but it should be borne in mind that this method significantly degrades the quality of adult maggots.

Why do you need food for flies and how to feed them

For those who are interested in how to grow and store maggots at home, it is important to clearly understand that in order for the adult larvae to be healthy and have a “marketable” appearance, the flies need to eat well enough.

Often scraps, boiled eggs, flour and dairy products and rotten vegetables are used for feeding, but meat undoubtedly gives the best effect.

Flies also eat offal and other parts that remain after cutting any animals with pleasure and for the benefit of their health. The same food, but in crushed form, can be fed to the larvae themselves.

However, you should not think that you will have to buy kilos of meat and wait for it to spoil: in this way, instead of the expected profit, you will only experience losses.

To breed fly larvae, you will only need the residue left over from cutting up animal carcasses, dead chickens and chickens from poultry farms or fish. Finding the source of this “good” will not be a problem.

You can arrange for some of the waste to be left for you at nearby farms, poultry farms, or simply enterprises where meat is processed. By law, such remains must be buried, but in practice, businesses are usually happy to get rid of this hassle and will give you second-class or substandard goods.

You can sell maggots yourself by opening them in a fishing store, on the Internet, or sell the goods to large chains.

As mentioned above, maggots can be sold within a week. When this period has passed, they should be collected and stored, otherwise they will bury themselves in sawdust and pupate, and then flies will hatch from them. You can collect the larvae with gloved hands, or you can sift the sawdust through a sieve.

The larvae should be placed in jars with fresh (necessarily wet) sawdust and placed in the refrigerator. At temperatures from -4 to -2 degrees, maggots will last for about a month.

The sale of maggots for fishing should be carried out precisely at this time, since after this time the larvae will not be of interest to fish, which means they will also lose their attractiveness to fishermen.

You should know that maggots can change their color depending on their diet. From the white they turn white (although this is their main color), from the yolk they become yellow, and from the special food coloring rhodamine B they turn red. This property can be successfully used, knowing well the demand of your consumers. You can change not only the color of the larvae, but also their smell. For example, if anise oil is added to sawdust, maggots acquire a noble smell, which not only appeals to fishermen, but also attracts the attention of fish.

How to organize sales

Despite the fact that growing maggots is not at all difficult, this niche in our country has not yet been occupied. Many fishing stores buy this product abroad, while additionally paying for its delivery.

You can sell maggots yourself by opening a small fishing store in a busy area or even on the Internet, or you can offer your goods wholesale to large stores of a suitable profile. You can give your goods to other stores “for sale,” and use what comes back to you later as food for new maggots.