No thanks. Not for the ick factor, but know that fowl can contract myasis from the same flies those gut buckets vector. Having them in proximity of chickens just invites the flies to advantage the vents, and any wounds they find on the birds and then set up shop. You ain't never lived until you clean wounds of maggots where they're literally eating the animal alive.

Guess that saying is true: There's no such thing as a free lunch. Think I'll give it a try next year but will keep your warning in mind. Tom

Seems to me that would get awfully smelly. It's hard enough to keep the coop and run from getting stinky without adding a maggot bucket! Ick!!

The maggot bucket is a good thing if you can get by the smell. As far as myasis in your flock you would need certain conditions to exist. A wound or vent area that has feces sticking around it for the fly eggs to be laid on/in. Keeping your flock healthy and clean goes a long way to prevent this from happening.

With flies being everywhere, most of you have never heard of or see myasis in your chickens with or without a maggot bucket hanging in your pen.

If your bird is wounded isolate and treat it, if your bird has a messy vent area feed probiotics mixed with their food to regulate their digestive system properly.

Again, with or without a maggot bucket conditions must be right for myasis to occur.

Maggots are very high in proteins/fats--great natural foods for your birds.

Think, if the flies are laying their eggs in the gut bucket they are not laying them on your chickens.

I haven't had it on my fowl, but it's not an common problem with field animals. Maggots are food, and I'm not icky about them at all. They're even used medicinally now to debride wounds. Some of them just don't know when to stop, however, and keep on moving deeper into flesh. Just being pragmatic. If you have a large flock, or are brooding chicks, there are bound to be some with wounds under feathers you can miss. By the time you've found the infestation on a chicken, it would be gruesome. Most of us has had the occasional hen with a spurred back, or one who we haven't yet separated from the flock who has been pecked at. I'm in my coop several times a day, and I watch for those things, but realistically do you pick all of your birds up everyday and check under their feathers?