PhilinYuma
Well-known member
Kova
Well, I tried to find my topic on raising houseflies in a 12" net cube, but I couldn't find it, so here's a new thread.
Brian's bluebottle pupae eclosed to give a cube full of blue, shiny flies. I wanted to breed them, but I know that, unlike houseflies, they need decaying flesh to get them to lay. their eggs. If you come from a good Jewish family, you probably keep a pot of frozen chicken livers in the back of the freezer for those days when you just have to have chopped liver. I decided that a few ounces of rotting chicken liver would probably do the trick, so I liquifed a couple of livers in a spice grinder (you can easily clean the grinder afterwards by putting some chunks of dry bread in it and grinding away -- works like a charm).
I used the same food that I make up for the houseflies. The proportions don't have to be exact, but four cups of ground dog food, 1cup of casein and one cup of brewer's yeast -- I see that Rebecca is selling it at a good price now at MantisPlace -- and two teaspoons of Paraben, if i feel like it (I think that the maggots are large enough to eat any mold before it can eat them). I usually add the dry dog/cat food powder in an equal volume of boiling or very hot water, stir it up and then add the other two ingredients as it cools. I doubt that boiling water would be good for the casein. I then add more warm water until it is the consistency of thick mud and stir in two handfuls of wood shavings, currently T-Rex Aspen bed, which is a herp substrate. The mixture is then placed in 1.5L oblong Rubbermaid containers, half filling them.
I would give this to houseflies as-is, but for the blue bottles, I made a depression in the surface and put in about 11/2 ozs of the pureed chicken liver before putting it in the cube. I had found a spot (it is much too hot outside, still over 100F) where a little bad smell would do no harm and left them to it. It still didn't smell bad, even after two days though, so I tried to find something else to use. I'll make my fish stick episode brief. I don't eat these things, but i had a few seriously old ones in the freezer and cut a couple in half lengthwise, sprinkled meat tenderizer on them - "tenderizing" is a nice word for "rotting" -- moistened them and put them in a bag in the sun to turn nasty. I set up the chicken liver food on the 30th, so this was about a week ago, and the pieces still smell as fresh as ever they did. They must be one part fish parts to nine parts preservative!
It turned out that the bluebottles had a better sense of smell than I, and when I pulled the box out on about the 3rd, I found it absolutely full of tiny maggots. I made up four more pots of food, without the chicken liver and shoveled the happy maggots in. Today, the maggots in three of the pots (I must have left too many in the last one and they need more food) have started to pupate. Yay. I'll refrigerate some and let the others eclose normally. I let you know when the "happy event" occurs!
Well, I tried to find my topic on raising houseflies in a 12" net cube, but I couldn't find it, so here's a new thread.
Brian's bluebottle pupae eclosed to give a cube full of blue, shiny flies. I wanted to breed them, but I know that, unlike houseflies, they need decaying flesh to get them to lay. their eggs. If you come from a good Jewish family, you probably keep a pot of frozen chicken livers in the back of the freezer for those days when you just have to have chopped liver. I decided that a few ounces of rotting chicken liver would probably do the trick, so I liquifed a couple of livers in a spice grinder (you can easily clean the grinder afterwards by putting some chunks of dry bread in it and grinding away -- works like a charm).
I used the same food that I make up for the houseflies. The proportions don't have to be exact, but four cups of ground dog food, 1cup of casein and one cup of brewer's yeast -- I see that Rebecca is selling it at a good price now at MantisPlace -- and two teaspoons of Paraben, if i feel like it (I think that the maggots are large enough to eat any mold before it can eat them). I usually add the dry dog/cat food powder in an equal volume of boiling or very hot water, stir it up and then add the other two ingredients as it cools. I doubt that boiling water would be good for the casein. I then add more warm water until it is the consistency of thick mud and stir in two handfuls of wood shavings, currently T-Rex Aspen bed, which is a herp substrate. The mixture is then placed in 1.5L oblong Rubbermaid containers, half filling them.
I would give this to houseflies as-is, but for the blue bottles, I made a depression in the surface and put in about 11/2 ozs of the pureed chicken liver before putting it in the cube. I had found a spot (it is much too hot outside, still over 100F) where a little bad smell would do no harm and left them to it. It still didn't smell bad, even after two days though, so I tried to find something else to use. I'll make my fish stick episode brief. I don't eat these things, but i had a few seriously old ones in the freezer and cut a couple in half lengthwise, sprinkled meat tenderizer on them - "tenderizing" is a nice word for "rotting" -- moistened them and put them in a bag in the sun to turn nasty. I set up the chicken liver food on the 30th, so this was about a week ago, and the pieces still smell as fresh as ever they did. They must be one part fish parts to nine parts preservative!
It turned out that the bluebottles had a better sense of smell than I, and when I pulled the box out on about the 3rd, I found it absolutely full of tiny maggots. I made up four more pots of food, without the chicken liver and shoveled the happy maggots in. Today, the maggots in three of the pots (I must have left too many in the last one and they need more food) have started to pupate. Yay. I'll refrigerate some and let the others eclose normally. I let you know when the "happy event" occurs!
Last edited by a moderator:
).
