bottle flies

leolover

New Member
I just bought 500 bottle flies from mantis place. I just wanted some advice on how to keep them alive till my cham can get all of them. And how many a day should I feed him?
 
You'll need to gut load them. Also, you can slow down their hatch rate but refridgerating them for about a day or two. Just make sure you take them out every third day or they won't hatch at all.
 
feed them little amount of the food (maybe 1/2 tsp) about once every 2 or 3 days.
if you put the food too much, it will spoil real quick in this warm weather.
the fly will probably b fine eating rotten food, but i presume it's not good for your cham.
and when you are about to feed them to your cham, give them food 2 hours before feeding.
 
so when I get them, I am going to put the container in the refridgerator for 2 days and then take it out for one day and the put it back in? In that case, how long before they will hatch? What kind of food am I giving them? Should I givethem the gut load that Kammers supplies??
 
You can do it a couple ways, it just depends on how many you want to feed at a time. I would take some out, say 50, and put them in a separate container and let those hatch. Put the rest in the fridge for 2 days, then take them out for a day or two and resupply your feeder container when you need to.

My 8 chams would eat 500 flies faster than they could hatch, so I probably wouldn't do the fridge method. But if you buy in bulk, or only have one cham to feed, then you might consider trying to lengthen their hatch rate.

I didn't know the Kammers sold fly food. I just got a recipe from them:

Gut loading:

Since the flies emerge with empty stomachs, you will want to "gut-load" the flies to make them nutritious for your chameleons. You can mix a soft-boiled egg (mashed to a smooth consistency) with a few teaspoons of plain yogurt, baby rice cereal and some honey. Once cooled, take the culture out of the fridge and knock the flies down by tapping the container to one side. Carefully open the lid and smear a generous teaspoon full of fly food to the side of the container. When the flies warm back up to room temperature (within minutes), they will immediately begin feeding on the yogurt mixture. Two to three hours later, they should be ready to feed out. From this point forward, the flies can stay out. You can gut load any remaining flies the next day, by following the same procedure listed above.
 
Yeah, they didnt sell me the fly food, they just sold me the flies... but I didnt know what I was doing with them and they all died. I only have one cham to feed so I was wondering about how many a day would be good to feed him. He is about 5 months old. Do I just take about 50 out a day and feed those to him till they are all gone and then take more out to hatch? About how long after I take them out of the fridge does it take for them to hatch?
 
Yeah, they didnt sell me the fly food, they just sold me the flies... but I didnt know what I was doing with them and they all died. I only have one cham to feed so I was wondering about how many a day would be good to feed him. He is about 5 months old. Do I just take about 50 out a day and feed those to him till they are all gone and then take more out to hatch? About how long after I take them out of the fridge does it take for them to hatch?

usually 2 to 3 days depending on how hot the temp
 
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