Do maggots help or hurt a compost pile?
We have a compost bin and there are thousands of maggots wiggling on the top. Generally we dump our food scraps daily and turn the pile weekly (or so). So we have live ones on top and dead ones throughout.
On that same thought – does anyone have problems with cockroaches and a compost pile? I haven't seen them lurking around ours yet… but wouldn't be surprised.
Thanks.
more info…
we don't put meat/protein products (or salt, or fat) but we do put in other than veggie items (bread, shredded paper)
Maggots are not a normal underground compost helper bug. You have something in your pile that is attracting flies and these are just their egg larvae. I have had compost piles for years and never had one maggot. It needs plenty of green and brown compost matter and some moisture. Keep it turned so it keeps itself hot and changing scraps etc into compost. If it stinks or looks like its rotten, then you have an anaerobic pile. Which means no air. Bad. you want an aerobic pile which is healthy and breathing. Good.
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should be ok.
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I can't imagine they would be that harmful, but they could be eating the nutrients that will eventually become your fretilizer. I would stop putting meat or meat products in their if you are, that might eliminate some of the problem.
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dont worry it all helps. the ones that die stay on bottom and as you turn it you just rotate everything and any thing that they have eaten if they die , then the nutrients just go back to the animals
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I don't think it hurts anything. I've seen all sorts of things living in my compost pile – even a mouse once. I imagine that they are just part of the natural process.
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It sounds helpful, but who knows. Maggots do dissolve solid matter, but if some of them can leave with your solid matter in them, then that may not be so helpful. You seem to say that they die in your pile so I wouldn't worry about it.
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Maggots only eat rotting flesh I think. So your previous answerer's suggestion about not putting meats there should help.
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Only put vegetation o your compost heap, NEVER, cooked stuff and certainly not meat. The maggots will turn into bluebottles or flies and you'll be infested with them. Worms should inhabit your compost heap as they change the vegetation into compost. Check with a garden shop to see if there is anything you can use tio get rid of the maggots without hurting the worms. Otherwise I would get rid of it and start afresh. Read a good gardening book about starting the compost pile. Done properly it provides excellent and well nourished compost which will be a benefit to your garden and plants.
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Quat47 is absolutely right! The ONLY stuff you should be putting in your compost is vegetable matter.
Maggot do indeed hatch into flies and YUCK!!!! you certainly do not want them.
I think I would suggest you "cap" the pile and start afresh one, using only plant material. Eventually the first one will clean itself out and you will be able to go back and fill it with plant stuff as well. Actually be nice to have 2 piles that you can rotate after one is full.
I've never heard of or seen cockroaches in a compost pile, but then I've never seen "food" stuff put in one either. So maybe…..
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There are a number of flies which will breed in compost. Keeping food scraps covered will reduce their number.
The Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) is a large fly often found in compost piles and worm bins and is discouraged but not eliminated by covering food scraps.
'The Rodale Guideto Composting' (my copy is from 1979) has an entire chapter on critters normally to be found in compost unless a pile is really hot. Red wiggler worms, sowbugs, soldier flies to name just a few.
When composting food scraps, enclose tightly enough to keep out rats and other vermin.
The UC Cooperative Extension for Placer County, California has an exellent on-line tutorial on all aspects of composting.
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http://ceplacer.ucdavis.edu/Custom_Program654/
Maggots are not a normal underground compost helper bug. You have something in your pile that is attracting flies and these are just their egg larvae. I have had compost piles for years and never had one maggot. It needs plenty of green and brown compost matter and some moisture. Keep it turned so it keeps itself hot and changing scraps etc into compost. If it stinks or looks like its rotten, then you have an anaerobic pile. Which means no air. Bad. you want an aerobic pile which is healthy and breathing. Good.
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maggots are just like worms the only difrence is they eat meat to. They are fast little eating buggers. They dont seem to cause any real problems with composting as fare as I can see. The real problem is more that they will eat the garden your trying to grow things in. You can add Lime to get things back in order so you dont have to start over.
Maggots have little to do with the content of your pile. Decay of just about anything smells good to them so if you’re seeing a lot of dead maggots and your pile smells, parts of it are most definitely anaerobic. I’ve got a pretty intense maggot infestation in my worm bin right now but it certainly isn’t because of rotting meat- my bin is strictly vegetarian. Maggots seem to LOVE the spent grains and hops that I throw in from my homebrewing operation and the flies as well as their maggots appear to be proliferating about 10 – 100 times as fast as my red wrigglers (which are still alive, their safety and health of course being my prime concern as it is their bin.) I have yet to experience any real problems. The worm and maggot populations don’t seem to conflict- the maggots really like the less decayed plant matter on top, and the worms stay near the bottom where all the good goo and the bedding is. If your bin is like mine and not going immediately into the garden but is going to require a tiny bit more processing (when most of the solids are no longer visible I intend to dump the thing, recollect as many of my wrigglers as possible and start anew as my current bin is at capacity- and then let the castings dry just a teeny bit before I make extensive use of them. I’ll worry about the maggots then.) I would suggest just letting them go before taking any action to control them that could potentially hurt other beneficial life in the heap.