# grubco flies



## sk8erkho (Mar 3, 2007)

Are the flies at Grubco the house fly pupae that you put in the fridge an only take out what you need and in a few hours you have flies, House flies? Trying to purchase from Oregon but it's a bit cumbersome as I was told I had the wrong prices and such and it is not Paypal or even online payment. So by the time i get in from work they are closed. I was told by one rep to leave my card info in the email. Duh. :shock: Not comfortable with that. And i really need these guys (flies) soon, as ol' girl isn't jelling with those stinky crickets. She began eating them and now just sits at the top watching them run around the tank. I tried different sizes and she ate half of one and just isn't trying to have anything to do with them anymore. She ate the first batch of crickets which were not as stinky and cruddy as these and were the exact same size from the exact same place. So, I'm at a lost. She _*Is*_ hungry because when I took her out of the tank she grabbed my finger and tried to take a chunk out of it. I had to shake her off vigorously to get her off. Then she kind of followed my movements around after I put her back in the tank reaching as she did when she tried to eat my finger. So.....


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## OGIGA (Mar 3, 2007)

If she's that hungry, maybe it's a good idea to feed her meat. I read on this forum that some people feed ground beef to their mantises. I never tried, but i rather not have a mantis starve to death.


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## Rick (Mar 3, 2007)

> If she's that hungry, maybe it's a good idea to feed her meat. I read on this forum that some people feed ground beef to their mantises. I never tried, but i rather not have a mantis starve to death.


Not really. The flies from grubco are blue bottle flies which are a little bit bigger. Basically same thing though. You do keep them in the fridge and take out however many you want to pupate. It can take a week for them to turn into flies though.

If I were you I would get your crickets from a different place. Mine are not "cruddy" and it takes several weeks for them to start smelling at which time I just replace the oatmeal substrate and the egg cartons and its good to go.

Get some sticks for your enclosure for the crickets to climb up towards teh lid so the mantis can grab them. THe mantis iwll eat them.


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## Jodokohajjio (Mar 3, 2007)

You might also try hand feeding her. Decapitate a cricket or something and put it up to her mandibles with a pair of tweezers. She'll probably taste it and grab on to munch.


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## sk8erkho (Mar 5, 2007)

Crushed the head. she doesn't want them. Left a smaller one in there and even pushed it up closer, handicapped it. She just stabbed at it and ran it away. She seens to have been frustrated like this since the wing thing happened to her while I was in the hospital. She is happiest when I let her out but she heads to the window and climbs as high as she can go and stays there until I decide to bring her down. What's up with that? She was one from the ooth I salvaged back in Sept. 2006. I can't let her go when she can't even seem to manage to feed except the gazillion fruitflies by hand I gave her. But she grabs hold of the tweezers and chews at the tip. What?? :? Now I'm frustrated. I'll go ahead and find a new place for the crickets. I have been having a really difficult time getting some one from Skipio's (Oregon feed...) to respond to my emails. The last email they told me I had the wrong prices and housefly pupae ct. Something about it being an old add. The dude said he'd ask someone and never got back to me. I called over the weekend got the times abit off. It was only 6pm my time and in Oregon it should have been around 3pm. Anyway, I'll emergency order some crickets from an online dealer. Any suggestions?

Thanks once again guys!!!!

Thank you know who for the forum as I'd really be lost!!!

Best regards!


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## Jodokohajjio (Mar 5, 2007)

Persistance might help when hand feeding...especially if she's not used to eating that way. They can be skeptical of already dead food...especially when it is being held by a huge creature from their perspective.


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## sk8erkho (Mar 6, 2007)

But, that's not the case. I have been hand feeding her since she became too large for the smaller flies and I had a food shortage. So, I would feed her maggots from the fruit flies at first via tweezer then the flies as well. We would get a cool rhythm going and it worked and those were the small D. melanagaster flies. The crickets are about 1/2 " and she just does not want them. Tonight I went as far as putting a couple of mantids L2-3 in with her and she doesn't want them either. They are still in the tank. It's been maybe 5 days now guys and she won't eat. She made an attempt at a cricket last weekend and the next thing I knew she was on her back. I flipped her over because with her wings fluffed like that she had a difficult time gettign up. She does not like to be handled now either. However, when out she does head str8 to the window and stays up top until I get her down. She has been stressed like this since her wings were crippled.

I had to put on gardening gloves to handle her. I put a rush on some flies from a place called Flukerfarms. I'll see how this goes.


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