Curly wing flies.

[Kate]

I requested fruit flies from local pet shop but they got in these curly wing flies. Out of two boxes I got about 15-20 flies. There are heaps of pupae in there. The baby nosy be's seem to like them, has kept them busy most of the afternoon. Anyone used them and If they all come out together how do I keep them alive?

 

[Ferrah88]

My Ellioti only eats flies at the moment (And the occasional cricket, everything else is WAY too big for him) so I might be able to help you

At one point, I had so many flies that they started to die off before he got around to eating them, so what I have been doing is getting a second container, throwing the live flies and a couple of pupae in there and leaving that container out, while putting the other pupae in the fridge. It slows them down a lot, and they don't hatch out as quickly because of it.

If there are too many flies (30+) put them into the fridge directly, until there's a manageable amount left and do as stated above

This is what I do, assuming by "curly wing flies" you mean the flies that are bred to be unable to fly. It has worked well for me, and I almost constantly have flies! And not too many too...

 

[Kate]

Thanks a lot. This morning I must have had about 50 of them between 2 boxes.LOL they seem to be the right size for the two babies and they are very interested. How many do you feed at one time? I have two very small nosy be's that need to be fattened up!

 

[Ferrah88]

That I'm not entirely sure on, as Marimo is my first chameleon, and he's not exactly the same kind as yours I do however feed him 6+ flies a day, 6 of them are always calciumed right when he eats them, and I do prepare a couple extra to run around the terrarium. If I don't have enough flies at the time, I also feed a couple of gutloaded crickets. He pretty much eats as he pleases (He doesn't cup feed as he gets scared when I put anything cup-like in there, or hand feed yet, flies are hard to hand feed anyways!) I'm sure someone else would be able to help you with the amounts though You could try feeding them as many as they will eat, and just monitor them a bit so they don't over eat!

 

[Kate]

Thanks that is very useful. Looking after these two for pet shop as they were so tiny. Haven't been able to get correct size feeders for them over festive period. However now I have heaps so have some catching up to do.