Blowfly maggots?

[Craig52]

Can anyone tell me the difference between a house fly and a bush fly if any. As far as i am concerned,if a fly comes in the house on your back then it is called a house fly.
Pretty sure the pupae you get from aquarium/reptile shops all originated from Healesville Sanctuary where this major source of live food came from in the beginning. You will find if you grow your maggots out to full size before they pupae you get large flies,if your maggots pupae at a very small size you get small flies. Craig

[E Orix]

Some 15+years ago I trapped some flies and they were the start of a breeding colony that has been going without
any added to it but kilo's taken from it.
I live in a rural area and I don't know if they are bush flies or what, to me they seem the same as I remember when living in Melbourne.
You don't need many to start up, if you keep feeding them and don't remove the maggots too early within a couple of weeks you will have a fly explosion.
Look after the colony and as you see they will just keep on producing.

[Greg41]

I breed bush fly maggots in the garage and when an escapee appears in the house it becomes a house fly [so my wife tells me ]
When we get strong easterly winds we seem to have more flies about which are no doubt bush flies blown towards the coast.

Greg.

[finchbreeder]

Rob, let Greg show you his set up. It is brilliant, saw it a while back. If you are willing to do flys then you can't get better. Unfortunately we women are sometimes squeemish about these things.
LML

[Rob]

Rob, let Greg show you his set up. It is brilliant, saw it a while back. If you are willing to do flys then you can't get better. Unfortunately we women are sometimes squeemish about these things.
LML

Greg kindly showed me his flybox setup and explained how it's done. The maggots certainly are alot smaller and manageable than the ones my pop used to give me (blow flies) and I couldn't smell any stench whatsoever. I am now in the process of making my own box. I got a box from the recycling centre and some old fly screens from gumtree. It'll have 3 compartments. A top ledge for sugar and water bowls, a middle section for bran/milk powder and the light and a bottom section for the blown mixture and pupae to sit. The top and bottom sections will both be accessible. I'm just not sure of the best way to do this yet and was thinking maybe i can utilize the flyscreen materials somehow. Maybe even make a dead fly tray out of it to remove dead flies to feed my quails. I'll try to attach photos in case someone has a good suggestion.
I'm also curious as to how many of you use a standard light globe vs the reptile heating globe?
The box

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I have this I can use. It's the metal framing for flyscreens. I can cut to size.

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[Greg41]

Hi again Rob, I use a normal globe in a ceramic holder without any problems. Where you have cut out a section in the ledges I would fly wire in the bottom section with a stocking entrance to breed out the maggots,in the next section I would put the globe where the flies can't get on it and the large top section I would have the water, sugar and the bran mixture with the flies. If you were to check out 20 boxes they would all be different and all work,set yours up and then learn as you go along and work out what is best for you.

Hi LML the cheque is in the mail for the kind words you said about me or was it just the fly box?

Cheers.
Greg.

[Rob]

20160306_135304__1457244083_144.136.96.87.jpg

All done complete with a tray on the bottom for collecting dead flies for my quails. Just gotta get some wogs to get it going. Hopefully Greg will help me there. Just used a normal 50 watt globe. Probably will add a rheostat and thermostat later on.

Here's an explanation of house flies vs bush flies etc. http://www.viacorp.com/flybook/fulltext.html

[Greg41]

Hi Rob, Iv'e been away for a while, will put in a mixture for you today, should be ready by Monday.

Greg

[Rob]

Hi Rob, Iv'e been away for a while, will put in a mixture for you today, should be ready by Monday.

Greg

Thanks

[Rob]

Ok I've got my flybox running well now with millions of flies and maggots being produced. I would like to be able to separate the maggots from the bran mixture and put them in a fresh container of pollard to clean them up more and to reduce any chance of fungus/mould consumption. The quails keep eating the bran and i don't feel comfortable with it. I've read that somehow some people use a hair drier. I tried it but just kept mixing the bran into the maggots again. Does anyone do this and how?