Petco

[Devilpacker]

Petco carries fightless fruit flies at a good price much better than wormman farms and cheaper, good to have a petco close by to pick emergency supplies aswell

 

[Macano]

Make sure to call ahead of time. The ones within 50 miles of here said they have fruit flies and after driving to each one I discovered that they didn't.

 

[buddhistsoldier88]

I had to get emergency FF recently and they had cultures which looked like ###### but have been producing FF enought for my mantids to keep up. The FF are very active and my mantids just cant get enough...literally! :blink:

 

[Andrew]

I got a culture from them recently...it never produced anything. I've had cultures from them in the past that did produce well for a little while, but I've had much better success just coughing up the money for real cultures and material.

 

[thebugwife]

The cultures they have really suck!

No one really buys them so they are normally out of date and not producing.... they are kept too cold.

I never buy them but in an emergency I'll check them out and every time I'm disappointed, last time I was there I was impressed cause they had a couple awesome looking cultures but with a closer look all the "flightless" were flying around in fact one was open and I took it up to the register and got a stupid look from the twinkie behind the counter when I told her the flightless fruit flies were flying away....Don't you love Corporate pet stores!

 

[hibiscusmile]

I started my ff hydei culture from those I got at Pet smart. They just happened to have some that were alive. Try getting that at my petco! Good Luck!!! Every time I go there the only ones they have are dried up. Why even bother is what I am thinking. But thanks to pet smart they are still going strong. I made 15 cultures last night and could of made many more but had to sleep

 

[OGIGA]

At PetCo, half the time I find old non-producing gross cultures but the other half of the time I find very good and healthy looking cultures. They last only a few weeks, but that's why I take those flies and use them to start new cultures!

I never see the PetSmart ones, but the one time I went to check, they ran out already and they were labeled "hydei".

 

[buddhistsoldier88]

my petco cultures were drying up so i made my own using partly Mikhails stuff and whatever i had in the house (will post if it does well...). Kept the tubes cause they can come in some use. They were horrible to begin with but survived enough to feed my mantids til L2. The cultures died out just recently but did ok. Not completly satisfied but good for emergencies.

 

[MantisNation]

my petco cultures were drying up so i made my own using partly Mikhails stuff and whatever i had in the house (will post if it does well...). Kept the tubes cause they can come in some use. They were horrible to begin with but survived enough to feed my mantids til L2. The cultures died out just recently but did ok. Not completly satisfied but good for emergencies.

LOL - I agree with some of you guys. FF cultures in PetCo really suck!! I only use them as back up in case of an emergency. Sometimes I think they're trying to sell you a culture of mold, and throw in a couple of free flies for you lol. Yeah they suck.

Thanks,

Eros

 

[nasty bugger]

Petco was the only place on this side of town to 'carry' ff's. When I got there there were about 6 vials, and only one had a few live ff's in it. I passed, and drove about 40 miles across town and bought 3 32 oz deli containers from them, and have started my own cultures so I don't have to to that again, or worry about running out.

Nobody seemed to know what I was talking about when I got there, but the guy on the phone knew he had them.

They're cost was more expensive on this side of town than on the other side also. Competition Oh yeah, their snall crickets that I got there died in no time also. ###### as far as what my needs were.

I use the Arizona Reptile Center over in Mesa for my feed needs now.

Good and their place looks well taken care of by knowledgable people, with no BS.

 

[obregon562]

i love the petco cultures. nearly all i use. Theres a ton of flies in most, so i feed some right away and make a ton of cultures with them later!

 

[Frack]

Petco is generaly different at each location when it comes to the exotic stuff, the one closest to my house is almost unrecognizable from the way it looked 6 months ago inside so I dont know how much good feedback can do when it comes to a place like this. I go there every once in awhile to buy crickets and Ive never seen a healthy ff culture at the one I go to. As for the price Ive never bought them at the store but I had a giftcard and bought 1 little thing of ff and it cost 35$ to get shipped to my house so I wouldnt say that is a good price at all.

 

[kamakiri]

Bought them locally, and worked well since I've only bought fresh cultures. I have also seen that they will still keep nearly dead/done cultures on the shelf.

 

[Xenomantis]

Not the best solution, but good for emergencies.

The Cultures at my nearby Petco are large and filled with live fffs. I'm planning on using them to make a new culture.

 

[Rick]

Not the best solution, but good for emergencies.The Cultures at my nearby Petco are large and filled with live fffs. I'm planning on using them to make a new culture.

Ones here are all dried up and dead. I like Petco otherwise though.

 

[lectricblueyes]

Mass production of anything comes cheap but at a greater cost. TV's for $500 that break down in a year or two... so cheap and unreliable it costs just as much to fix one as it does to simply replace it. Fast food, chinese-made Walmart goods, $5 sandals made with the hands of enslaved children... puppies from puppy mills who have seizures and nearly die 12 hours after leaving the shop. America is loosing it's identity one double quarter pounder cheesburger at a time. Petco, Petsmart... is it any shock that 1/2 the people here in this thread haven't much good to say about those Fruit Fly cultures?

Find a reptile house. I have one locally (20 minutes away) who gets new cultures every week. They toss out the trashy ones. Yea, $15 is a RIP OFF but you know what... 2 months and still going strong. I just toss in some new crumbled potato chips and mist the inside of it every few days and it re-creates the culture. That and it's supporting a real person who really owns a real shop who really gives a rats butt about your pets and I sit and talk to him for 10 minutes. He might want to buy some of my praying mantids once my Ootheca's hatch. I feel better, the stuff is better, and that guys smiling face, words of wisdom and knowing my $15 is feeding his twin daughters is JUST FINE with me.

 

[PhilinYuma]

Back to Petco. They know that folks who are serious about raising predatory animals, like mantids or poison arrow frogs, are going to be raising their own, so they tend to sell to the impulse market (I have heard, "How about a vial of fruit flies for your guppies? They like live food occasionally.") and people like us, who are stuck with an emergency. They get a shipment in and are probably going to have to wait a week for another, so the quality of the flies tends to depend on how many units/day they sell. Same with crickets. It is always a good idea to find out on what day your store gets their shipment in and buy the next day. If you wait until the day before delivery, you are going to be getting week old flies or crix. Also, check to see if there are maggots or pupae in the vial. That would be fine in a 32 oz pot, but the medium in a tiny vial is likely to be aleady almost dried out if you see this.

If you have more than a couple of mantids, buy a pot or two from one of the dealers with good ratings on this forum. Set up your cultures on the day that you order, and when they arrive, you're ready to go. This is especially true of someone waiting for a large ooth, say Chinese or Giant Asian, to hatch. You'll go bankrupt if you try to maintain them on those tiny vials.

 

[Zephyr]

I've never seen a good-producing culture at Petco or Petsmart.

I'd find it easier, cheaper, and more worth-while to buy one off the net from an established breeder.

 

[agent A]

I always get fruit flies from Petco, except they only have D. Hydei.