Fruit flies as food...

[L_mactans]

I have heard that although wingless fruitflies can be a good source of food to s'lings, that it can cause some problems with leg formation, or something. How many flies are too much? Apparently in my area NO ONE sells pinhead crickets, and although my tiniest ones have been doing well with cricket puree', I would prefer not to squish.
Am I worrying too much?
L_mactans

 

[Code Monkey]

No one knows if tarantulas are actually susceptible, but in true spiders it was found the fruit flies lack some essential nutrient that eventually causes them to moult into deformed, curly legs. Iirc, they found this out while lab rearing widows.

At any rate, it's the old better to be safe than sorry. The best rule of thumb I've heard of is not to only feed fruit flies for more than a couple of months - no one's ever reported a problem following this rule so it's probably good (if also possibly pointless ).

I used fruit flies for a while but they're more trouble than they're worth (and too expensive) in my experience. If I can't get a small enough cricket or roach I just chop one into chunks (no need for squishing). The sling will eat what it wants and then you remove the left overs.

 

[Mendi]

Here's a tastier alternative to fruit flies that you might want to look at, termites... If you have a yard, you should be able to find 1 or 2 colonies, and baby Ts seem to love them. You, on the other hand will have to make sure where you gather them from has not be sprayed with any chemical treatment, and you'll have to dig to get them for feeding, and to find where the colony resides.

I tried fruit flies for a while and decided to find a better food source. But when they are the only thing you can find to feed then one does what they have to do... IMO though they are about or as nasty as crickets dealing with and raising them...

 

[Code Monkey]

Heh, funny you should mention termites. We culture them in the lab I'm working in and have been trying to come up with a good way for culturing them in the home. They're pretty easy to get a self sustaining population going with nothing more than some moist popscicle sticks/tongue depressors & unbleached paper for a food source.

 

[webspinner]

Hey, how can I get my hands on some of those termites? As far as the fruit fly thing. Don't you tend to find them every whare, but whare you want them?:?

 

[ines68]

Originally posted by webspinner
Hey, how can I get my hands on some of those termites? As far as the fruit fly thing. Don't you tend to find them every whare, but whare you want them?:?

I find the termites breaking the sticks that are in the ground in the backyard of my building. I think is more easy than the fruit fly. Put some termites with the stick in a deli cup, you can keep them for a lot of weeks. Be carefull with the termites and your house furniture