Where can I purchase housefly maggots?

[xenuwantsyou]

And what do you use to feed them. I was thinking of soaking asponge in honey and letting th maggots take care of the rest. Thanks for your help.

 

[Rick]

www.grubco.com You don't feed the maggots anything. You keep them in the fridge and then you take some out of the fridge and within a week you have flies. I feed the flies honey to make them last much longer.

 

[wuwu]

grubco actually sells bluebottle maggots. for houseflies, i buy from www.spiderpharm.com

 

[Rick]

grubco actually sells bluebottle maggots. for houseflies, i buy from www.spiderpharm.com

Not much if any difference when it comes to using them as feeders. They are basically the same thing.

 

[xenuwantsyou]

Thanks. And yeah the difference between the two doesn't really make a difference.

 

[Alex 1]

I think it does, but only because bluebottles are 2-3 times bigger.

 

[Rick]

I think it does, but only because bluebottles are 2-3 times bigger.

Well if thats the case then grubco is not sending me bluebottle flies. Cause what I get look exactly like houseflies.

 

[wuwu]

are you sure rick? have you bought flies from anywhere else before?

 

[Rick]

are you sure rick? have you bought flies from anywhere else before?

Yeah I am sure I get my maggots from grubco and they turn into flies that are just like houseflies. I can even take a pic.

 

[wuwu]

yes, please take a pic because i think you're confusing bluebottles with houseflies. all the people i've talked to that buy from grubco all get bluebottles from them. it would be weird that only you are recieving houseflies. you can also differentiate the two from the size, the bluebottles are much larger. bluebottles are about 1/2 an inch and houseflies are about half a cm.

 

[Nick Barta]

Oregonfeederinsects.com sells 1,000 housefly pupae for $2.00, with shipping 2nd day for $6.85, for a total of $8.85. The pupae last about three to four weeks in the refridgerator, so you keep adding pupae daily into your hatching container to keep them coming! Have honey or sugar and powdered milk for the hatched flies, and you are a fly hatching machine.

Spiderpharm is alittle more expensive, 1,000 housefly pupae is $3.90 and shipping is $8.20 (but is ground-4 days) so you pay a total of $12.10.

The savings of $3.25 per order is of value to me, but the shorter shipping time is more important when you are out of flies, so I use Oregon Feeder Insects.

I heard a rumor that if you warm up the pupae at room temperature once a week the pupae last much longer-I think DeShawn may be the inventor of this practice.

 

[Rick]

yes, please take a pic because i think you're confusing bluebottles with houseflies. all the people i've talked to that buy from grubco all get bluebottles from them. it would be weird that only you are recieving houseflies. you can also differentiate the two from the size, the bluebottles are much larger. bluebottles are about 1/2 an inch and houseflies are about half a cm.

I honestly don't know what they are. They are about 3/8" long which is not very big. Wrong or not this type of fly which is what you find in your house sometimes is commonly called a housfly. So if you want to get technical they may not be true houseflies. All I know is they are perfect food for small to medium mantids so these will be fine for what xenu is looking for.

 

[Alex 1]

^^^That's a bluebottle, Rick. I know they're bigger because I ordered housefly pupae from somewhere(I don't remember, probably spiderpharm) and they were much smaller than bluebottles I ordered later on. Also, bluebottles are shiny and dark blue. Houseflies(musca domestica) are not shiny and have relatively dull colors.

 

[Rick]

^^^That's a bluebottle, Rick. I know they're bigger because I ordered housefly pupae from somewhere(I don't remember, probably spiderpharm) and they were much smaller than bluebottles I ordered later on. Also, bluebottles are shiny and dark blue. Houseflies(musca domestica) are not shiny and have relatively dull colors.

Well I honestly wouldn't want anything smaller. These are perfect for mantids. Grubcos site doesn't say what kind of fly they are so I always assumed they were houseflies since they are the same kind of fly that gets in the house in the summer.

 

[xenuwantsyou]

Well thank you both of you. I actually have a need for both types. I just caught a bluebottle looking fly in my house and it was perfect for one of my L5 H. Grandis.

 

[wuwu]

i prefer bluebottles over houseflies. i try to skip houseflies altogether and just stick with the bigger fruitflies, bluebottles, and turkistan roaches.

 

[Alex 1]

Well I honestly wouldn't want anything smaller. These are perfect for mantids. Grubcos site doesn't say what kind of fly they are so I always assumed they were houseflies since they are the same kind of fly that gets in the house in the summer.

Yeah, me neither. The houseflies I got surprised me on how small they were. Not really practical at raising anything. And I emailed grubco a while back and they said they were bluebottles, not houseflies.

On a side note, it's really easy to catch flies on warmer days. I just leave a piece of raw chicken outside in an insect cup and come back in 30 min to close the lid on them. I've caught up to 6 flies at a time this way, but it could be improved with a bigger containet and more bait.

 

[Rick]

Thanks to those who clarifed what kind of fly they were. But for the original poster I recommend the kind I get.

 

[yen_saw]

Blue bottle is great for larger and adult mantis, more meat as compared to house fly. I have also noticed that larger orchid mantis ignore small house fly all together. However, house flies are great for L3-L5 nymphs. I have also noticed that house fly from Oergon insect feeder is considerably larger than spiderpharm's house fly, must have been the food they are feeding to the maggots.