Live Food for Pets - Curly Winged Flies
By: Rocky & Bullwinkle (our pet invertebrates)


Curly Winged Flies are a fairly new entry on the pet food
scene. The Curly Winged Flies are a recessive mutation of
either the common fruit fly or the house fly, with wings
that are misshapen (curly), making the flies flightless, or
relatively so. They also are nearly blind.

Of course the flightlessness and poor vision makes them much
easier for you to handle as well as for your pet to catch
and eat. Be aware, though, that they can still walk up the
glass or screen sides of the vivarium, and are good jumpers.
Also, because the mutation is recessive, there will often be
some flies born in each batch that can fly.

The simplest way to feed your pets Curly Winged Flies is to
purchase them in small quantities from your pet supplies
store. Raising your own flies without having to deal with
the stench of rotten meat or fruit and the associated danger
of botulism can be challenging, so you may not want to
attempt it. Another complication of raising your own flies
is that the adults and larvae need different conditions, so
you would have to do a lot of careful monitoring and
handling to rear them successfully.


Caring for Purchased Curly Winged Flies

If you order online or purchase Curly Winged Flies from your
local pet shop, they may come in small plastic cubes with
foam plugs under a plastic cap. If so, simply remove the
plastic cap and you shouldn't have to do much more until
time to feed them to your pets if you use them within a day
or so.

If the flies you purchase are the larger house fly variety
they may be in a ventilated plastic box with wood shavings
in the bottom, and there may be only a few adults with many
ready to hatch chrysalises. If you will only need a few
flies at a time, you can keep the box in the refrigerator or
some other cool place to slow down the hatching.

If you are willing to take on the challenge of raising your
own flies, there are several websites online that will show
you detailed instructions as to how to do so. You will
basically need two different habitats for the adults and
larvae, and special cultures for feeding the larvae (maggots).


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