Techinques for Feeder Flies

I'm planning on doing a pictorial on how I'm currently adding flies to my mantis enclosures, and was hoping I can taunt the rest of y'all into posting yours as well. Anyone wanna show what they gotz...?

Probably, when I see your video, I'll understand better what you're asking; maybe I'm over thinking this?

I keep my flies in a number of 12"net cubes where I breed them. When I want to use them, I suck them into a two quart jar, using Phil's Phamous Phly Pharmer, which is pretty much a vacuum cleaner with the accessory hose attached to a 2 gallon jug containing the jar. I plug the hose entrance hole with an MT bottle of caffeine tabs (damn, I have a lot of those lying around) and put it in the freezer with an 8oz deli cup and lid. After five minutes (YEMD), I take out the containers and shake the comatose flies into the 8oz cup and go and drop them into the enclosures. The small pot and lid is useful if the flies start coming round before I have finished. I can just put the lid on and zap them again.

And that's about it. You can put pupae in, of course, but you have to wait for them to eclose and can never be sure if they'll all make it, so the Phly Pharmer is the best route for me.

I hope that that is what you are asking. If not, please correct me.

sofar, I'm still not breeding my flys just yet. but I should be doing that shortly.

with that said, here is what I do with my housefly pupa that I buy...

I just add some pupa to each 32oz deli container that has a vented top.

the screen top prevents the houseflys and bluebottles from "sweating" and it let's me add powdered food and a quick mist of water. so thier needs are always met.

I fit about 50 pupa in each container and that seems good enough to me.

to feed off, I just stick them in the fridge (not the freezer, as emergencys crop up in my house to distract me, and I'll kill my flys with the freezer) and in 20 mins or so I can start dumping out a few flys to each container of nymphs. I add the flys back into the fridge if needed to continue.

net enclosures I just open the flys inside without any fridge needed.

BB flys I just buy the spikes and pull out what I will need every few days so they all don't hatch at once and I wind up with a continous suply.

now if Phil can show us how to make a portable fly sucker-uper, then I'll go that way.

I've seen some things on the UK site that interests me, but I'm lazy and a poor do-it-yourselfer.

Harry

This sounds like a good practical method. How long can you keep the eclosed flies in the pots? Do you try to keep them at a lower temp? This is the kind of information that we middle-of-the-road breeders need. I'll look out my old post and pic for the PPPP.

Let me know by p.m. when you are ready to start breeding yr own flies.

Yup! Exactly what I was looking for!

I remembered the vacuum post from a few month back. Great solution.

And I've done the spikes in the fridge thing in the past, too - might do it again. With house flies, it's easy to pace them out, but the BB's have too short of a lifespan as adults, so might need to modify. Another plug for mantisplace is that I can get FF, HF, BB pupa and BB spikes all in the same box. It's essentially a months worth of flies for all sizes.

I'll post pics and description (probably tomorrow). Hopefully you guys can bang it into a better shape.

Anyone else...?

as for breeding my flys, I'm sure it's not hard. I got some stuff from Carey.

it's just I got a ton of insect feeders in my home. why have a ton more when I can just buy more when needed.

I wind up breeding two or more of my feeders at any given time. plus all the bugs I just buy. why add more to the program?

let's also not forget I have a ton of thies things called mantids that I prefer to give a small amount of attention to.

oh, and I keep the houseflys for as long as two weeks or so. but let's face it. they don't normally last that long...hungry farts that my mantids are.

temps are no lower then normal temps for flys. cooler is better then too warm for sure when in small pots.

Harry

warpdrive said:

as for breeding my flys, I'm sure it's not hard. I got some stuff from Carey.

it's just I got a ton of insect feeders in my home. why have a ton more when I can just buy more when needed.

I wind up breeding two or more of my feeders at any given time. plus all the bugs I just buy. why add more to the program?

let's also not forget I have a ton of thies things called mantids that I prefer to give a small amount of attention to.

oh, and I keep the houseflys for as long as two weeks or so. but let's face it. they don't normally last that long...hungry farts that my mantids are.

temps are no lower then normal temps for flys. cooler is better then too warm for sure when in small pots.

Harry

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So am I right in thinking that you won't be PMing me for assistance? :lol:

Assume you mean bb's and houseflies? Well very simple actually. I remove pupa from the fridge and put in 32 oz deli cups. Once they are flies I feed them honey in the same cups by squirting it onto the top of the foam plug in the side with a syringe.

I stick the whole cup of flies into the freezer and set a timer. Fresh bb's take about four minutes or so. Once flies stop moving I take from freezer and using my long tongs/tweezers I remove them from the cup and drop into the mantid enclosure.

Rick said:

Assume you mean bb's and houseflies? Well very simple actually. I remove pupa from the fridge and put in 32 oz deli cups. Once they are flies I feed them honey in the same cups by squirting it onto the top of the foam plug in the side with a syringe.

I stick the whole cup of flies into the freezer and set a timer. Fresh bb's take about four minutes or so. Once flies stop moving I take from freezer and using my long tongs/tweezers I remove them from the cup and drop into the mantid enclosure.

Click to expand...

Yup. Mine's a variation of that. Becuase they're communal, there's usually some small population of flies in there at any given time. Too many and they know down molting mantids. So it's difficult to introduce more by dropping in the cup (which I would prefer).

I like the siringe idea. I have something similar. I'd keep them plugged with a foam stopper, and have considered just soaking that in water/food mix.

warpdrive said:

oh, and I keep the houseflys for as long as two weeks or so. but let's face it. they don't normally last that long...hungry farts that my mantids are.

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Ha, ha! Yeah, it's essentially managing inventory for me. I've taken to over-ordering lately, as the real cost of running out of food, in terms of cannibalism and mortality, is just too high.

And I tend to get close to a month from adult house flies, and have begun considering them jumk food for BB eaters. They'll snack on them, rather than starve.

I like my methoud and can't do without it, I have the 1 1/2" hole in each container, the pupae is put into fruit fly bottle to hatch, the mouth of the fruit fly bottle just fits into the hole. Remove sponge from mantis house, tap fruit fly bottle to move flies from the top and remove sponge, place in hole, let out however many flies, replace sponge and replace sponge in mantis house and move on. Really does not get easier than this, never have to feed my flies as they are ate as soon as they hatch that day. The bottom of the bottle, holds the pupae so it does not get into housing when feeding the flies. No placing in fridge either, not necessary this way, If you have about 4 or 5 bottles, and put in amount u want to feed off each day, you just wash and refill for new hatching.

I haven't figured out how to easily get the side holes like Hibiscus has, and I'm still thinking it's worth it to give them a day or two to feed, before making them food.

So, in the meantime, here's my current system. This repurposed screen enclosure is well (well!) ventilated, and easy to clean. I keep it in a net cube when not in use (just to minimize any gnat infestations, or unwanted visitors to the food).



Keep the ideas flowing...

OK, so a few revisions later, I've simplified things.

Big net cube, with tub of fly pupa inside, with small hole cut in the tub for escape.

Once I have a significant amount of flies running free in the net cube, I put the whol thing in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Then, when the flies are slow, I remove the tub from the cage and put it yet another net cube.

This leave a net cube empty, except for free roaming flies. Four minutes in the freezer and they can be easily poured into a waiting "FlyPod".

The FlyPod is just a small delicup with lots of food in it. The flies spend 2 or 3 days in here just fattening up, before I put the entire FlyPod in the mantis cages and pop the top.

If you need pics, I can do them tonight...

What is the difference between the "spikes" and the pupae? What temperature does it take to effectively get the pupae to eclose and at what temp does it cook the pupae to death? Can someone give me answers to these questions. I am getting a flurry of eclosure the first day of leaving pupae in the net cage, then after the pupae that do not eclose remain, they seem to go to a "dud" stage and I have to end up throwing them away as they do nothing thereafter. I never get even 50 per cent use of my order of BB or HF pupae. I know I am not getting it right.

Spikes are larval flies (maggots) and the pupae is the "cocoon" between maggot and fly. I say nothing beats room temp or a bit warmer. I never use any additional heat and keep them in the same temp room as my mantids, so no chance of cooking to death.

If you are putting them in the oven or microwave...that could be your problem.

I know I keep my enclosures too warm for pupa. They can only go in as adults, or at night.

I've killed them with water too, which I wish someone would explain to me. The live in wet muck, pupate in damp yuck, and then, if a TINY little drop of water gets on them, they all die. ???

hahaha, u guys kill me!

Listen , the pupae can stay for months in the damp frozen ground, and then walllaaa , when it becomes warm, we have flies. So they actually need no water..

I buy my BBS as maggots, then I separate the maggots from the sawdust they come in, other wise it will smell like dog poop! Do any of you remember what my BB pupae used to smell like? and how it was always stuck together? Well that is because I used to buy it in pupae form, but it was too much work and the smell was awful. So now I buy the spikes aka maggots and pupae them myself.

1). Take maggots out of old sawdust and put into containers to either pupae for now, or fridge, skip this step if you get from me, as they are already in clean sawdust.

2). When you have separated them into the size portions you want, either set in a warm place, or place in warmest part of your fridge.

3). All pupae, be it fruit fly, house fly, green or blue bottle pupae, will take 1 to 5 days to hatch, or more if temp is to cool. When you set out fresh pupae from say... like me, it needs time to hatch.

4). The time it takes from maggot to fly is 8 days of constant warm weather, so I set the amount I want to pupae for 4 days. At the end of the 4th day, I put it in my bug fridge.

5). Now each day I need flies to hatch, as it takes 4 days for the BBS, prob 3 for house, never counted them (sorry) to hatch, each day I set out an amount to hatch, but the first day u set out pupae to hatch, u must remember takes 4 days, this is the second half of the 8 days that it takes the maggots to become flies. So every day new pupae must be set out, so at the end of the forth day, I will then have a constant supply of flies.

Now, I am forgetful, due to Oldhimers.... and on occasion I forget to set out a bottle of flies, that means the mear meager amount of the others, 3000 of house flies or 1000 of BBS, must now be spread out among all the containers, which Is No Small Feat! :lol:

So it is

maggot 8 days to fly

spike same as above

maggot to pupae for fridge 4 days

maggot can stay in fridge for 3 weeks or a bit longer

pupae can Stay in fridge for 3 weeks or longer, but will start to lose hatch amount

maggot can stay in fridge for 3 weeks and then 4 days to pupae, then back to fridge for 3 weeks!

blue bottle flies can then be put back in fridge for about 5 days without food and will last outside fridge after that for about 3 days before dying off, but not sure how much nutrition u would get from a skinny fly :tt2:

this does not apply to house fly pupae, as it is usually not sold as maggots aka spikes.... but both species usually will last 3 weeks in fridge and a couple days as hatched flies, or 1 month as flies that are fed.

PS: after rereading the post, the holes I make are with a hole drill and they are I believe as stated above somewhere 1 1/2" hole.

Maybe we can pin this as I don't know if I can type it again!

I tired now. :whistling: ...Hibiscy must have nap :sleeping:

OK, for my math to be right, I have to make a few assumptions. Correct me if I'm wrong...

Assumption: Spikes that arrive with a cold pack, start the 4-day countdown the day they arrive.

Assumption: It takes 4 days for refridgerated pupa to eclose, whether they've been in the fridge for a week or a single day.

Assumption: The most nutritious fly will have fed for 2 days prior to being introduced to your mantids.

That sound about right...?

If so, then here's what I think efficient fly production might look like...



So, if you divide your flies upon arrival into 5 groups, you can pull a group out of the fridge every 4 days and have perpetual flies for feeding (obviously barring accidents).

Playing it safe (a margin of error of one group) you'd re-order flies every 13 days. To simplify, you could tweak that to every 15 days (or twice a month).

I think I'm leaning towards something like the feeder setup on Hibiscusmile's site (mantisplace.com). I also think I'm going to put each grouping of fly hatcheries into butterfly net cubes to keep them organized and keep the bad stuff out.

I also think I'm going to have to start labeling and dividing them for individual enclosures (ie: L3-L4 Idolo Tank #1. L5-L6 Idolo Tank #5).

I can see problems here, since molting and appetities are going to cause supply/demand issues. Too many flies all at once is bad, so there will still need to be a literal or metaphoric "valve" to restrict flies from the enclosure. Still working on that...

I'm sure my math is fuzzy in places, but let's see what y'all have to add...?