Dinky Musca domestica

[Entomo-logic]

I have been having success raising lots of House flies (Musca domestica) for my mantids. The only problem is that they are really small compared to the first generation I got in. I know I can make them bigger by adding more protein to the mixture but the media already contains milk, dry dogfood, wet catfood, and fish flakes, how much more protein do they want? My question is... Is there something I am missing I the mixture that is preventing me from producing monster flies? (Vitamin A perhaps? I know that is an important part of house fly development.) Let me know of any suggestions you all might have.

Thanks

 

[PhilinYuma]

Wow, Tony, what a smelly, disgusting mess! And I don't mean that in an angry, snide, conceited or arrogant way, either!

You must have a substantial problem trying to duplicate that mixture every time. I've given my own formula so many times that it is not worth repeating, but it consists of all dry foods moistened with tap water. You might try giving up on the fish and wet cat food and tossing in a cupful of brewers' yeast in every 7 cups full of mix. Do you powder the dog food? Everybody does! How about adding a couple of handfulls of small wood chips to every 2 cups of mix. HF's like a little roughage in their diet!

My guess is that you are underfeeding them. Remove the food container after a cuppla days if you are putting it in with a cageful of flies, or alternatively divide the maggot infested food in two and place it in two containers with another cup or so of food in each container. It seems that unlike some insects, flies will pupate at the same time regardless of the amount of food available and show a wide range of imago size. Let's know how that works.

P.S. Are you getting a nasty anaerobic mercaptans/ammonia smell in your mix? That is really toxic for the maggots, as I'm sure you know, and sometimes they will migrate just to get away from it and have to pupate early.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Ditto Phil, I was going to suggest the brewers yeast too! A lot of breeders of domestic animals use it for fast growth.

 

[PeterF]

They need a little gym or something to work out in.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Could help, could help.

 

[lion]

Hi. I just read that they stay the size they are when they emerge from the pupa. So your best bet is to get that maggot food just right. Till later

 

[dgerndt]

I don't have any experience with house flies, but definately go add some brewer's yeast. I put some in all of my fruit fly cultures and I have rather large flies.

 

[PeterF]

I am dealing with the same problem. I had huge populations of maggots that I probably should have split up. Maybe some of the jars were in the neighbor hood of 1k, or more (that's just an estimation, but they aren't even done emerging!)

But for now, while I would like larger flies of course, I also am not sure I am so concerned. Because I have so heavily over produced, I am prepared to take more small flies (at an easier time) than fewer large flies (with more work).

There is a possible nutrition issue of course. But that is a different matter.

I do find it hard to believe that with your recipe that you can really be experiencing a nutritional shortage. I mean, you have so many ingredients, and half of those each have a bunch of ingredients themselves. I suspect you have a wide range of nutritional needs covered. And Phil's suggestion about maggot density is a viable direction to look.

Of course, maybe you only have 12 maggots in a pot, I don't know.

What I am curious about is the concept of early pupation in maggots. Either, as Phil suggests about them pupating in unison. Or as I have read else where about them pupating when food is short. What I have not seen in these contexts is an explanation of if the maggot can skip the last instar stage and simply pupate, or if it still needs to run through it's instars but just a shorter stadium.

 

[lion]

I am wrong about the size of flies after pupae. There is now a separate bowl with yeast ,sugar and milk-powder for the flies to eat and they are officially super-sized.

P.S> I got house flies