Great video. I like the way you are not so scientific, but more casual and general. Sometimes the basics are more important than all the technicalities. I like the quiet ambient music in the background so I can hear you speak clearly. Nice British accent is also appealing. I learned a lot and enjoyed watching you. Thank you. Wow. I'm glad I made it to the end of the video because I love your idea about using the squeezable condiment bottles. I am looking forward to trying that idea for dispensing fruit flies.
I know your video is two years old but instead of using expensive fruit fly culture , use simple instant mash potato. The mash potato has all the protein the maggots need and cheap, cheap , cheap lol .
Tysm for this Video! I am currently looking into getting myself a cute little Mantis and one of my main concers was how on earth to feed flies without them getting everywhere :'D
It kinda depends as you don't always know how long theyve been pupating for when they arrive... Ive currently got some in there for a week which still havent hatched. Best way to do it is separate them out, then you can stagger when you bring them out in the warm and speed up the pupation. I usually have mealworms as a bit of a backup just in case the timing doesnt work out
@poi8487 Oh, gawd.... shudder.... what is _wrong_ with you people? Those bloody arachnids have no business or right even existing! They're horrific manifestations of evil that must be purged with fire! Seriously, I'd rather have a thousand snakes(as long as non-venemous) delivered & released in my yard. Er.. waitaminute, I just realized something.. did he say "house flies"?? He's not going to release a thousand jumping spiders *inside* his house, I hope? No.. no way.. not inside.? He must mean they're for in the yard & garden..?
Lol I made a live catch and breed my own 😂 free fly hack. We also feed our mantis the Mormon crickets and other pests that come in. I have a giant Chinese mantis so she's a hungry gal 😂
Hi, love your video. I was disparately looking for information on keeping green bottle flies. I knew that I had to separate the fly casters in different pots. And where to store etc. But I just put some sugary water on a tissue to hydrate and feed? Is that ok
I kinda rotate them out of the fridge these days, so i buy the casters then get some out every few days to warm up and hatch out at different rates. if i get caught short i have a dubia colony so i give them those, or mealworms
Whats the temp inside your little mini fridge? I'm sure there has to be a too cold for them thatd k*ll them instead of just slow down the metamorphosis?
im not entirely sure of the exact temp, it defo delays the pupation however compared to leaving them at room temp. I'm still experimenting but at the moment i take out the tubs once they start hatching
The pupa/casters that have been incubating for almost 3 weeks now still haven't hatched. Zero flies yet! I am not sure which type of fly they are, but I suspect they are house flies... Is it normal for the pupa to take so long? I am keeping them in tubs on a layer of paper towel. I lightly mist them most days to make sure they don't dry out. They are being kept at a temperature of about 25-27 degrees centigrade. Am I doing anything wrong or just impatient?
Pretty sure they should have hatched by now, mine start coming out within the week and often start hatching even in the fridge not soon after, though im not sure the age of the casters at the point of their shipping. I wonder whether its too humid if you're misting as I don't give mine any water at all, the only time i do it now is if i've had some that have been adults for a while then ill put a few drops in with a syringe. Funnily enough i had noticed that the ones that were in a more moist environment seemed to die off quicker although it might have just been coincidental. Could be a dodgy batch, maybe if you get some more try misting one and not the other and see what happens. If you're in the UK let me know and i can recommend a supplier on ebay, theyve been great every time!
@@Wade_Wiley Thanks alot! I have like 750... Some maggots, many pupa. They definitely aren't bluebottles as they are too small. I live in Norway and it took me 2 years to find a place here where I could purchase them from. Apperently they are not used over here for fishing very much, hence my struggle to obtain them. The problem is kinda compounded due to few suppliers being willing to send to Norway. I will try as you say and keep them drier... I have kept bluebottle pupa before and they hatched almost always within a week. Cheers my friend ;)
@@Wade_Wiley Hmmnnn update... It's been over a month now and my fly pupa still haven't hatched. Not 1 single fly. I must be doing something wrong, but I don't know what. I've studied just about every fly husbanday video on youtube, but I'm still none the wiser. Kinda funny really. I've bred all sorts of feeder insects over the years. Roaches, crickets, locusts, but I cannot for the life of me get simple flies to hatch out lol! I have stored 3 tubs of 250 maggots in the fridge. Most of them have now pupated. From that batch I took about 50 pupa and set them up in several hatching tubs. Each tub has 10 pupa in it. Some of the tubs were kept at about 21-25 degrees celcuis. Others were kept warmer at about 27-32 degrees celsius. I set up the tubs the same way as you show in this video with a raisin in each. I would mist a couple of the tubs lightly 1 per day of so. Other tubs I didn't mist... Nothing... about 33 days and counting and no flies... Hehehe what on earth am I not doing right?... One of the most prolific insects on the planet and I can't get them to hatch. Maybe mine have somehow gotten wind that they will be served as mantis food and have all decided to commit mass suicide instead? Don't blame them! No idea. Anyway hehe, just wanted to relieve some frustration hehe. Thanks for listening :)
@@steveboutcher80 Sorry to hear that mate thats so strange! I always get like 50%+ hatching out and to be honest i dont do anything special, even ones ive literally just left in the container they arrive in usually just hatch out eventually whether in the fridge or just left at room temp. The room im in is usually around 25c+ and never had issues. I wonder if its the place youre getting them from? I get mine from a supplier on ebay and they arrive as casters so i dont have to worry about them as maggots. Perhaps see if you can source some different suppliers? If not ive been using baby dubias lately too the only thing is its a pain having to tweezer feed them all as the roaches are good burrowers!
@@Wade_Wiley i am in the uk and the ploace i get my flies from on ebay the last 6 tubs have done nothing though they were great before, any chance of finding which supplier you use?
I have some Mediterranean Mantids that are an inch and a half long that are probably big enough to eat Blue Bottle flies, but they seem happy eating many Hydei flies at a time. Is there any reason to prefer fewer Blue Bottle flies?
Thats annoying theyre quite available here on ebay! Maybe theres a gap in the market ;) Another option could be wax worms and waiting for them to pupate into moths?
You could breed your own. They will lay their eggs in any meat so if you get like a 1x1 square of a high quality cut of meat (like something you'd eat raw yourself, preferably, cuz you're gonna end up letting it rot a bit and we don't want disease to fester to your mantis) and let them do their thing. At that point, all you gotta do is source some flies. Which is...pretty easy with a live catch container. A small cream cheese container for example, with some fly-sized holes poked in the top and some fruit in it, you can catch flies pretty easy. Don't make the holes clean, the jaggeder on the bottom, the better. They go in and can't figure out how to get out. Unfortunately, you obviously run the risk of disease when sourcing from wild flies, but if you genuinely don't have another option, this is one!
Yeah, I was going to suggest that…a ketchup bottle. Makes life SO much easier! I want to know if there is a way to reproduce the house and blue bottle flies like you can the fruit flies? Trying to save money on feeding my jumper. Do you know?
Unfortunately I don't, I still buy them every few weeks but they don't last long due to die off! I'm not that clued up on jumpers but maybe try keeping a dubia roach colony and feeding it the small ones?
My female flower mantis will take crickets by hand the male will not. The ghost mantis will not hunt anything that doesn't fly and will not take crickets. When I don't have flies I have to cut meal worms in half and touch it to their mouths to get them to eat. Hopefully they grab on and take it eventually or I end up holding the worm while they eat the entire worm and I have 21 ghost mantis. 😑
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