culturing house flies

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young1

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Can the same method of culturing hydei fruit flies be used to culture house flies? same medium and all?

i also have a jar of blue bottle fly medium from mantisplace...will that be of use for anything? besides using sprinkles of it for blue bottle pupae?

 
is there anyway you can direct me to the page/recipe? I tried searching the forum but couldn't find anything

 
Kova

Try this thread: http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=14414&st=40&p=125971&hl=+rearing%20+flies&fromsearch=1entry125971

The old "bucket method" site appears to be down at the moment, but the "Cow Patty" clip at post #45 is working well!

I now use a modified version of the mix described there for both HFs and BBs:

5 cups dog food -- the cheap kind with about 20% protein

1 cup casein -- this will bring the animal protein up to about 26%

1 cup brewer's yeast -- everyone says that this is good stuff, and i have a lot of it.

1TBs Paraben -- inhibits mold. You can get it at josh's frogs.

Add about 1.5 times the volume of warm (not boiling, it will coagulate the casein) until you have a wet but not runny mess. the mix will take a while to absorb the water. Toss in a couple of handfuls of wood chips -- the kind use for herp bedding, like Hartz natural Pine chips.

Place about three cups of the mix in an open, 1900cc cubical plastic food storage box (about 71/2" by 51/2") not a deli cup which has too small a surface area.

Date it and set it in the net cube with the HFs and a lid with their food -- I now use dry milk, sugar and yeast granules and wait.for about a week before removing it. It is important to keep the mixture moist -- squirt it through the netting at least onece a day -- and you should have no problems. Another good tip is to drizzle a little honey on the top of the net. It will seep through and be eaten by the flies. Good luck, and let us know how you make out.

If you are cost conscious, you may decide to forego the casein and brewer's yeast. You will get a poorer yield, but it will cost less and you can add boiling water, which might kill any mold in the mix.

Good luck! Tell us how you make out!

 
Phil, have a few questions for you.

I did a quick google search (very quick) on the casein and it is a protein powder? The kinds people use to bulk up? Any place to get this fairly cheap at all? What about whey powder...isn't that protein?

Where can net cubes be purchased at? EDIT: Found some at Mantisplace Nevermind Phil.

You said "and a lid with their food -- I now use dry milk, sugar and yeast granules". What eats this...the flies? Any size lid, just placed anywhere within the net cube?

How many containers of food (the dog food, casein etc.) can you put into the net cubes before the flies die? I guess you could always just put new flies in when the old die.

What is a good number of House Flies to put in the net cube to begin with? I understand the more flies the more maggots, but adding in 500 flies there might be a problem with the media not having enough food for all of the maggots.

I would like to make 4-5 of these net cubes if it really doesn't smell at all or not too bad.

Jeff.

 
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Jeff Parker said:
Phil, have a few questions for you.

I did a quick google search (very quick) on the casein and it is a protein powder? The kinds people use to bulk up? Any place to get this fairly cheap at all? What about whey powder...isn't that protein?

Yep, Milk protein, about 50% ish. Whey is the same thing but check % protein. Just Google "buy casein".

Where can net cubes be purchased at? EDIT: Found some at Mantisplace Nevermind Phil.

O.K.! Other folks sell them, too.

You said "and a lid with their food -- I now use dry milk, sugar and yeast granules". What eats this...the flies? Any size lid, just placed anywhere within the net cube?

Yep again, it's food for the flies. They spit on it and suck up the liquid (yum!). Put it in the back, somewhere it wont get wet when you spray the food container. The big thing is to put the larval food container close enough to a mesh side so that you can spray it regularly.

How many containers of food (the dog food, casein etc.) can you put into the net cubes before the flies die? I guess you could always just put new flies in when the old die.

It's not so much their dying as laying all their eggs. I only expose one container, for about the first week, not longer, or you'll have flies pupating at all different times, and they'll eat all the food. They are very hungry! Flies usually start laying about 36 hours after eclosure.

What is a good number of House Flies to put in the net cube to begin with? I understand the more flies the more maggots, but adding in 500 flies there might be a problem with the media not having enough food for all of the maggots.

Fifty to a hundred or a cuppla grams of pupae

I would like to make 4-5 of these net cubes if it really doesn't smell at all or not too bad.

That's a huge number of flies -- many thousands a week! If they smell bad, something is wrong and the larvae are at risk from ammonia produced by anaerobic bacteria. Just make sure that the mix is very moist but not wet (i.e. no standing water). I think that one problem, especially with folks who use deli cups, is that the chips flow to the surface (as they should) dry out and seal off the top of the larval food. The top cover of chips and dried food, like the top of a cow patty (yum, again) should help to prevent some of the moisture from getting out but should not stop the oxygenating air from getting in.

Jeff.
Click to expand...
 
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I am needing a little coaching on the getting the "store bought" BB spikes to emerge as adults from the pupated stage. I seem to have a flurry of individuals emerging over one day or so. Then I seem to get stuck with a bunch, and I mean scores of unemerged pupae. What is a sure fire method to properly culture the fly from the pupae stage? Someone who has no problem with this, would you please give a cook book approach, as to what to put them in, how many, one layer deep? Temperature I assume is 80-82 ideally?

Thanks for taking the time to help me.

 
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I thank Rebecca, who off the record gave me a good way to get the BB pupae to emerge. I am trying the soda bottle approach after adding a few pine chips to keep things a little nicer at the bottom. They have been placed in a little warmer than room tempertature area near my regular heat lamp spot under which I keep my Violins. Actually now I have the bottle on it's side and place this in the net cage and let the emerging flies go into the awaiting arms of the hungry mantids. The record for shortest flight is less than a second as one BB flew straight at an adult female C. pictipennis.

 
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I am trying three such setups with the soda bottle and in one day or so I am seeing good results. I am leaving one of the soda bottles inside the net cage and letting it be a self feeder. This seems to be a nice way to go. Thanks Rebecca and Kiet for the later idea.

 
HF are way too cheap to have to deal with culturing but if you do this I would suggest a minimal size layer of the dog food, it gets nasty so I would just continue swapping it out rather than use a deep layer of it.

 
Back when I was doing this, I was just using instant potato flakes and milk, and I had no trouble with number or size of flies as long as the temp was above 70 (and more was better). I was just using "old" milk (you know, thick) as en egg laying medium and adding the potato and milk paste once there were cute little baby maggots.

However, I agree with BugTrader, that it's not worth the hassel. It wasn't too bad for me, but I was doing it on the clock, and the stink wasn't in my house.

 

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