FINCHforum

Mr. UPS man brought my order of Mini Mealworms. Or, so I thought!
I wondered why the packaging was different than previous orders...
Upon further investigation - O-Me-O-My! They are Fruit Flies!

A dozen beautifully packaged tubes of them.
Question - do I dare open the vials, and see if the finches will eat them?
Anyone that feeds them out there?

Although they are "flightless" - I have visions of them hopping all over the house.....

Btw, Timberline Fisheries was very nice, we had a good laugh about it - Minis on the way.

You could always freeze them and mix them into egg food!!!!! Sprinkle them on veggies...oh yum!!!!!

I used fruit flies with my rccb's and they ate them all so fast, the they did not have time to reproduce, which they were supposed to do for 30 days. LOL.

finchmix22 wrote: I used fruit flies with my rccb's and they ate them all so fast, the they did not have time to reproduce, which they were supposed to do for 30 days. LOL.

My only pair of RCCB just happen to nesting for the first time. They have been incubating for about 10 days now, so expect hatching within the week.

HOW did you give them, finchmix? In a little dish? Or mixed in food? Did you freeze them first?

Awesome. I found a kit to rear them online and was thinking about this as an option for my RCCBs. It's hard to find live mealworms where I live, and those that I do find are large. I think it is too hot to rear my own. Let us know how it goes.

I have read you can raise them in an exterior finch bath attached to the cage with the bars down so the finches cannot get in.

I put the opened tubes in canning jars with mesh lids meant for making sprouts. As the fruit flies crawled out, the birds were waiting. Cordons LOVE fruit flies, so this may be a very fortunate mistake.

I put the plastic container in the cage (with a mesh lid) and the rccb's ate them as they crawled out. They loved them! I just couldn't keep enough around once the babies hatched. They need lots and lots of food!! I went through four containers in one day!

Wow, I love all these tips about how to use fruit flies. When I ordered them once before, the directions said to tip the jar over and let the fruit flies out, but too many came at once, they were hopping all over the place, including out of the cage. I may have to try these again.

oy... reminds me of our genetics experiments in college way back when. we used to breed them keeping them in the old milk bottles with mashed sweet potatos at the bottom of the bottles and covered with stocking. they reproduced fast...

then of course we had to count mutations of the F1 offspring...at least now, once they reproduce, you can just feed them to the birds.

just fyi. mashed yams or any food base ferment and stink. bananas are worse... ugh.

Yes! Genetics class! Vials of fruit flies everywhere! Going in to the lab to feed and count and transfer your fruit flies every day of the week, weekends, and even through spring break!

We would anesthetize them with chloroform, then you had to analyze and count them for the traits/mutations you were breeding them for, before they woke up and flew away. Little buggers would start drunkenly walking and wobbling around on the microscope pan, then you knew you had about 10 seconds to either chloroform them again, or get them back in a vial, QUICK!!! We had to do several generations, so if the rare double-recessive you were searching for managed to fly away (or got overdosed on the chloroform and died), you were in deep doo-doo.

I don't think I could do fruit flies again. PTBL flashbacks (post traumatic biology lab flashbacks).

^

Yes. So much PTBL for me as well!

Though I'm not interested in perhaps seeing if my finches would enjoy these. I'm just worried they'll escape and hang out in my house cuz the finches may not be able to eat them fast enough/at all. XD

Can you put the vial in the bird cage.... I don't think the fruit flies stand a chance of getting past the birds if they know what they are! Yum yum they'll be gone in seconds after trying to walk out of the glass safety.

Can I just have a moan here and say that I am so jealous of all of you in the US that can get hold of all of these little critters so easily!!! Here in SA, the only way to get fruit flies is to leave old fruit out to rot, lol! We are light years behind in the feeder insect business

I saw on your other post that your Cordon's are eating them, great news! I'm sure most finches would have a good nosh on them

I will give this a try today.
Let you know how it goes!

monotwine wrote: Can you put the vial in the bird cage.... I don't think the fruit flies stand a chance of getting past the birds if they know what they are! Yum yum they'll be gone in seconds after trying to walk out of the glass safety.