07-08-2006, 10:04 PM
Everyone having a fruit bowl or breeding crickets, mealworms, zophobas, waxworms or the like know that wild fruit flies will live in your house.
While I was establishing my flightless colony I had shortage of food and had to trap and feed some of these flies to my frogs (6 sub adults, 4 juvs).
The trap is really simple, a plastic soda can cut in two and the top inverted and taped so flies don't escape.
I put a piece of banana on the bottom and almost every fly gets trapped. Now the tricky part, feeding them to the frogs without releasing them.
I first tried freezing them, but most would drop to the bottom and get wet with the banana or fruit juice and would die. I then decided to leave a very small gap between top and bottom part of the trap and place it close to a window.
As the flies found the exit either one by one, or in pairs, I would pin them down with a bird's feather (pin them with the outside or they will get smashed and die) and they would drop into a gerber vase with the dusting powder. Once dusted they are flightless and great for the frogs. I also use the feather to pick the flies from the dusting powder and shake them to the frogs.
If you have a flightless colony you might as well kill all the wild flies you catch by adding some soap to the water on the bottom.
While I was establishing my flightless colony I had shortage of food and had to trap and feed some of these flies to my frogs (6 sub adults, 4 juvs).
The trap is really simple, a plastic soda can cut in two and the top inverted and taped so flies don't escape.
I put a piece of banana on the bottom and almost every fly gets trapped. Now the tricky part, feeding them to the frogs without releasing them.
I first tried freezing them, but most would drop to the bottom and get wet with the banana or fruit juice and would die. I then decided to leave a very small gap between top and bottom part of the trap and place it close to a window.
As the flies found the exit either one by one, or in pairs, I would pin them down with a bird's feather (pin them with the outside or they will get smashed and die) and they would drop into a gerber vase with the dusting powder. Once dusted they are flightless and great for the frogs. I also use the feather to pick the flies from the dusting powder and shake them to the frogs.
If you have a flightless colony you might as well kill all the wild flies you catch by adding some soap to the water on the bottom.