- Joined
- Aug 15, 2002
- Messages
- 1,198
For the past six months I've been culturing flour moths and larvae as feeders. It has worked out really well for me so I thought I'd share my notes.
I found one of those forgotten bags of rice in the pantry, the kind with the 1/4 cup left at the bottom of the bag, and noticed that flour moths had laid eggs in the bag and that there was a healthy bunch of wriggling larvae moving around in the grains.
I poured the rice out into a critter keeper, then proceeded to add cricket diet, wheat bran, wheat germ, oatmeal, brown rice, and multi-grain hot cereal (dry) to the container until I had a nice, mixed substrate of larvae food. I put a piece of cloth mesh over the top and put the lid back on.
The larvae are very small (less than half an inch in length) and soft-bodied, making them good feeders for small slings. It's also easy to pop the heads off of them and feed them to really tiny slings pre-killed.
The adults are also quite small, again making good pre-killed feeders or live food for small to medium slings. (My L. parahybanas and L. difficilis are all munching on them as I type).
I don't use them exclusively but they do help me cover for times when I can't get pinheads or Drosophila for my slings.
I found one of those forgotten bags of rice in the pantry, the kind with the 1/4 cup left at the bottom of the bag, and noticed that flour moths had laid eggs in the bag and that there was a healthy bunch of wriggling larvae moving around in the grains.
I poured the rice out into a critter keeper, then proceeded to add cricket diet, wheat bran, wheat germ, oatmeal, brown rice, and multi-grain hot cereal (dry) to the container until I had a nice, mixed substrate of larvae food. I put a piece of cloth mesh over the top and put the lid back on.
The larvae are very small (less than half an inch in length) and soft-bodied, making them good feeders for small slings. It's also easy to pop the heads off of them and feed them to really tiny slings pre-killed.
The adults are also quite small, again making good pre-killed feeders or live food for small to medium slings. (My L. parahybanas and L. difficilis are all munching on them as I type).
I don't use them exclusively but they do help me cover for times when I can't get pinheads or Drosophila for my slings.