I recently bought a chameleon and it went on a hunger strike. I read that you should provide him a wide variety of food, but in Puerto Rico's pet shops they only sell crickets and on some rare occasions mealworms. I wanted to get flies for my chameleon but don't know where. Can anyone help me out? Also, I wouldn't like to feed him wild caught flies, since they might have been exposed to chemicals... but is there an easy/non-nasty way of gathering some wild flies and make them breed?
Where to buy Houseflies pupae in PR???
- Thread starter alexiserf
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d3s5
Avid Member
I put a little plastic cup with moistened dry dogfood outside for a day. The flies lay their eggs on the food. I put the cup with the eggs in it into a bigger cup with sawdust. I put a coffee filter with a rubber band around the bigger cup and put it in a warm room. In a couple weeks, the eggs have hatched, crawled out of the feeding cup and into the sawdust and turned to pupae. I take out the pupae and put them in a container with a cup of food (dry blue bottle fly food) and a cup of water. They hatch and after a day of feeding, I give them to my cham!
xanthoman
Avid Member
i agree, why not raise your own. you know, this subject came up a couple of mths back. another poster was looking for feeders in pr.
i looked pretty extensively and didnt come up with a whole lot, the guys cham died so i didnt continue the search.
everybodys advice was pretty much the same then,
screw US/PR customs and just grow your own flies/roaches.
never been to pr but i am sure they have flies and roaches to fit the bill.
both are pretty easy to attract and breed. with blue bottle flies you can have eggs in 24 hrs , maggots in 48 and adult flies in < 10. a single fly can lay up to 300 eggs. as long as you have refrigeration, flies are super easy to deal with. if youve ever seen roaches in your house it would probably be easy to trap a dozen or so. most roaches can easily be grown in a modified rubbermaid container
for flies, i use a small 1" sq of fresh fish, inside a small disposable food container with a few holes, or a crumpled plastic bag, just enough water so that things wont dry out . place it in the shade anywhere flies hang out like by garbage, compost, corpses or whatever. in 24-36 hrs you should have eggs that look similar to this; https://www.chameleonforums.com/fly-eggs-64753/ then i just transfer the eggs to a container of crisscrossed overly ripe cantalope slices (with pinholes or screen of course) in another 24hrs you should have maggots, let them feed for a few hrs and harvest and transfer them to cornmeal. flies are easy, there are a lot of different ways that will work.
if you are worried about pesticides or pathogens like coccidia, the risk can be significantly reduced by not feeding until the 2nd generation of flies. to do this all you need is a small net cage like they sell at the bug stores, a small cham cage, or you could even make one out of some window screens. then just use the flies you have hatched to repeat the process starting in the cage. easy.
also, visit the spider arachnid sites, they often have step x steps on how to grow flies, and dont forget you tube has vids on raising most common types of feeders. pretty sure they have black soldier flies in pr so thats a possibility. i know a lot of US bug people get < legal shipments of bugs from overseas all of the time, so you never know you might come across somebody willing to do the same. just a wild guess, but im thinkin theres not a big demand for house flies in pr, im thinkin maybe most of the people are lookin to get rid of their flies. try to find a pr spider club or forum, if you can find that, you have found flies
i looked pretty extensively and didnt come up with a whole lot, the guys cham died so i didnt continue the search.
everybodys advice was pretty much the same then,
screw US/PR customs and just grow your own flies/roaches.
never been to pr but i am sure they have flies and roaches to fit the bill.
both are pretty easy to attract and breed. with blue bottle flies you can have eggs in 24 hrs , maggots in 48 and adult flies in < 10. a single fly can lay up to 300 eggs. as long as you have refrigeration, flies are super easy to deal with. if youve ever seen roaches in your house it would probably be easy to trap a dozen or so. most roaches can easily be grown in a modified rubbermaid container
for flies, i use a small 1" sq of fresh fish, inside a small disposable food container with a few holes, or a crumpled plastic bag, just enough water so that things wont dry out . place it in the shade anywhere flies hang out like by garbage, compost, corpses or whatever. in 24-36 hrs you should have eggs that look similar to this; https://www.chameleonforums.com/fly-eggs-64753/ then i just transfer the eggs to a container of crisscrossed overly ripe cantalope slices (with pinholes or screen of course) in another 24hrs you should have maggots, let them feed for a few hrs and harvest and transfer them to cornmeal. flies are easy, there are a lot of different ways that will work.
if you are worried about pesticides or pathogens like coccidia, the risk can be significantly reduced by not feeding until the 2nd generation of flies. to do this all you need is a small net cage like they sell at the bug stores, a small cham cage, or you could even make one out of some window screens. then just use the flies you have hatched to repeat the process starting in the cage. easy.
also, visit the spider arachnid sites, they often have step x steps on how to grow flies, and dont forget you tube has vids on raising most common types of feeders. pretty sure they have black soldier flies in pr so thats a possibility. i know a lot of US bug people get < legal shipments of bugs from overseas all of the time, so you never know you might come across somebody willing to do the same. just a wild guess, but im thinkin theres not a big demand for house flies in pr, im thinkin maybe most of the people are lookin to get rid of their flies. try to find a pr spider club or forum, if you can find that, you have found flies
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