how to hatch and feed Flies the easy way

[angelofdeathzz]

I've read many a post here at the forum on how? to hatch and feed flies?(house flies or BB's), so I just want to share a very easy way I've adopted and have been using for a long time now with Very good results.

All the things shown here can be bought at a very reasonable price a Mantisplace.com,(your welcome Rebecca ).

I feel strongly that gut loading the flies before feeding them to your mantis is very important, I know some will hatch the flies in the enclosure with the mantis, which ends up being poor nutrition for them.

First off keep your unhatched pupae in the fridge in a container with small air holes, then take out what you need of either house fly(small) or blue bottle(large) and put them in the shallow deli(below) with the foam plug in, then if you need them fast keep them warm(75-78) but don't bake them with higher temps, in a day or two they should start to hatch, if not needed quickly room temp will do but may take a day or so longer. make sure you put what your not using back in the fridge.

After they all hatch in the shallow deli put one drop of honey per 10 or so flies on the small metal mesh holes in the lid(so 50 BB's= 5 drops) of the deli, you will see them quickly go for the honey and soon it will be gone with no real mess in or on the container and no additional water or anything required, re-feed as needed (maybe once or twice a day) after a day or so there fully gut loaded and ready to feed to your Mantis(or reptiles), then I simply and quickly take out the stopper(foam plug) on the tall odd shaped container(below) 1st and the deli with the flies 2nd line up the holes and let the feeding container fill up with amount of flies needed to feed, till you try this a few times you can cool down the flies for a few minutes in the fridge to give you more time to line up the holes, then simple feed what you need.

If you find you hatched out to many the extra can be stored in the shallow deli in the fridge, but they will live out of the fridge with daily feedings for over a week at room temp.

Pic's below:

 

[beatsnotbombs]

THANK YOU! Was just about to do some research on this! Very informative!

 

[Termite48]

This is a good system, Nick. I appreciate your posting it again. I will try it. Is the weird shaped container one in which ff are sold at Petco perhaps? I have had one like it before.

 

[angelofdeathzz]

This is a good system, Nick. I appreciate your posting it again. I will try it. Is the weird shaped container one in which ff are sold at Petco perhaps? I have had one like it before.

Yep, I bought one online that had ff media in the bottom and excelsior w/ ff's in the top, it worked well for flies so I bought 2 more from Rebecca.

 

[lunarstorm]

Nice thread. Admittedly I'm biased and totally agreed as this is exactly what I use.

I got mine from Rebecca as well (Rebecca runs mantisplace.com for the unaware.)

 

[hibiscusmile]

I am going to put a hole in the fly lid with plug on my new site, also I may need to hire someone to help me get it up in 9 days, it is almost done, have to figure out shiping.... help :helpsmilie:

 

[hibiscusmile]

ps thank you for the plug!

 

[LLCoolJew]

I've been hatching Nick's way for a couple of months now. It's the only thing that has worked successfully for me!!

 

[hibiscusmile]

you know it! when using a couple thousand flies a day, it is the only way!

 

[angelofdeathzz]

I've been hatching Nick's way for a couple of months now. It's the only thing that has worked successfully for me!!

I've shared this method with a few friends and they all seem to agree, it just works and is super easy, but Lauren is a quick learner and would have figured it out on her own sooner or later, lol. :smarty:

ps thank you for the plug!

Your more than welcome Rebecca! It's the least I could do given how you help so many, including me!

 

[warpdrive]

Nick,

I've been doing it this way for some time now. although I'm a drop more crude in that I just use a simple 32 ouce deli cup.

I also gutload my flys with honey (and bee polin). I sometimes also dust my flys before feeding. Yen's blend is quite nice for this.

Harry

 

[dlemmings]

okay sorry to be the noob again...I feed my mantids wild caught flys all summer and blue bottles for the adults and recently house fly ( much smaller than the wild flys I catch in summer) and fruit flys for my new creo nymphs. so for this method:

1) in the second container how do you get them into the mantis enclosures?

as of now all of my mantids are seperated ( no colonys) so i have to divy up ff or hf to creos and hf or bbf to adult ghosts & sp. lineolas so i fridge or freezer the hf or bb and then pitch them into enclosures or for creo nymphs I tap fruit flys from cultures into empty 32oz deli cups and then tap/divide into creo cups (adding one small hf to the nymphs I know are not molting soon.

2) do you notice the flys die easily if freezer stunned more than once?

I hatch pupa in one container then then fridge or freezer stun them and move to "gut loading" second container which I then feed mantids from. I keep bbf/hf food from mantispets.com & a cottonball with water in the "gutload"station and then chill and tweezer flys to the individual enclosures...is there an easier way. I hope to expand my collection without impinging on family time

 

[Rick]

Looks kinda what I've been doing for years.

 

[angelofdeathzz]

1) in the second container how do you get them into the mantis enclosures?

as of now all of my mantids are seperated ( no colonys) so i have to divy up ff or hf to creos and hf or bbf to adult ghosts & sp. lineolas so i fridge or freezer the hf or bb and then pitch them into enclosures or for creo nymphs I tap fruit flys from cultures into empty 32oz deli cups and then tap/divide into creo cups (adding one small hf to the nymphs I know are not molting soon.

2) do you notice the flys die easily if freezer stunned more than once?

I hatch pupa in one container then then fridge or freezer stun them and move to "gut loading" second container which I then feed mantids from. I keep bbf/hf food from mantispets.com & a cottonball with water in the "gutload"station and then chill and tweezer flys to the individual enclosures...is there an easier way. I hope to expand my collection without impinging on family time

1) I use mostly Exo Terra's for many of my mantis, so I just open the door with the room darkened and the flies stay in the enclosure(they fly to the light) if one does get out my cat has some fun and hunts it down. With deli's I always have a feeding port on top(same as the stopper in the fly deli), so I just pop the container in the fridge for 10-15 minutes and then open the ports and tap in as many flies as needed into the single mantis deli, or on the lid then knock them in the hole, if to many stunners drop out I use tweezers to put them in another deli.

2) I don't use the freezer all to often as it can kill some and stun others, which to me is a waste, the fridge is the way to go to slow them down, and I don't keep the shallow deli in the fridge ever as they all go in a day or two. just put only as many as you can use in a few days in the fly deli, but like I said they will last a week or so with no refrigeration needed.

 

[itzjustjeff]

is there a name for that oddly shaped plastic thing?

 

[hibiscusmile]

r u talking about the fruit fly bottle? it is fruit fly bottle!

 

[angelofdeathzz]

I'll go with it's a ff bottle. Odd shaped thing-a-ma-bob is a close 2nd though.

 

[angelofdeathzz]

If you won't be home to feed them or are out of honey, a water crystal or two soaked in sugar water works well also, just slide it in the feeding port(foam stopper).

 

[Psychobunny]

This is my method for feeding flies.

It's more work, and requires fast reflexes, but it works best for me as an alternative to cold stunning:

First pics will show the stuff you need; plastic flex hose (not the wire reinforced kind), plastic pipe cut to size, the standard

"Cup-O-Fly" kit, and a hot glue gun, Dremel tool with standard cutting bit, sand paper to rough up the edges for the glue to stick,

hobby knife:

After some practise, you can control how many flies you want to go inside the jar.