Carey's Housefly Breeding Media

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twolfe

twolfe

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Hello,

I posted a note about Carey's housefly breeding media under breeder feedback but thought it deserved a special post here. (Sorry if someone already posted this.) I gave Carey's media a try and wanted to let you know that it's working. I discovered larvae today! It doesn't smell and it's easy to do! Give it a try if you feed your mantids houseflies.

Tammy

 
Tammy Wolfe said:
Hello,

I posted a note about Carey's housefly breeding media under breeder feedback but thought it deserved a special post here. (Sorry if someone already posted this.) I gave Carey's media a try and wanted to let you know that it's working. I discovered larvae today! It doesn't smell and it's easy to do! Give it a try if you feed your mantids houseflies.

Tammy
Click to expand...
Sounds good! I think that I'll give it a try. Are you sure about the smell, though?

 
PhilinYuma said:
Sounds good! I think that I'll give it a try. Are you sure about the smell, though?
Click to expand...
When you mix it up it curls my nose, but once in the fly cage it was fine.

I only tried the BB one, so I'm tempted to setup a housefly one.

Harry

 
Ok. Maybe my sense of smell isn't that great or something, but I really don't think it smells bad. I've only tried the housefly media. I've purchased some blue bottle flies that smell, and some of my fruitfly cultures smell really bad about the time they should be tossed....

Anyway, I didn't start with the recommended number of flies for breeding. I did harvest about 300 pupae a while back and now my first houseflies have hatched. Yeah. Now I'm starting over again with more flies this time.

 
Yeah, the BB mix has an extra little "scent" ingredient, but it shouldn't smell too much after the initial mixing up. And you definitely shouldn't be able to smell it after you've put it in with the flies.

Tammy, you got a good amount of pupae out of just a few flies! That's great! And now you'll have enough to get it REALLY going this time! :D

 
I am so pleased that this is going so well for so many people! I'm not sure how much your mix differs from mine, Carey, but it doesn't matter so long as it is working well. Besides, if you are producing it commercially, you should have some kind of "secret ingredient"; remember the "secret sauces" in Fast Times at Ridgemont High"?

The only thing that I would add is that, given a finite amount of food, it might not be a bad idea to reduce the number of breeding flies, the larvae will grow fatter if there is still food left over when they pupate.

To anyone who hasn't tried Carey's magic mix, I would suggest that you give it a try. I assume that she is buying the ingredients in bulk, and in the long run, it might be cheaper to buy the mix, if you only need a few hundred flies a week, than buying the ingredients yourself and obtaining the equipment, like a good grinder. It is certainly much quicker!

Oh, one more thing. If you need a transitional insect between D. hydei and full sized HFs, you can produce small flies by flooding (don't overdo it) the food after the larvae have undergone their last (third) molt. They will climb out of the pot to escape drowning and pupate, yielding cute little flies! You may need to experiment a bit, though. Good luck!

 
I have the housefly media and I see larvae in mine already :) I haven't noticed a bad smell from the culture.

I'm waiting to see larvae in the BB media, I'm sure they take a bit longer than the houseflies. It will be nice to not have

to buy pupae anymore B)

 

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