maggot theives

[benrayjay]

well the "air tight container" has not worked, found my maggots being raided by thousands of ants, got so cranky i sprayed the ants thus killing nearly all of my flies. the maggots are ok, so i will soon have more flies

have since put the maggots in a water moat, only to find them bailing out of the container this morning and drowning themselves!!!!

i thought this maggot business was supposed to be easy . Why are they bailing out is there not enough food?, is it too cold?

please help

[Diane]

Just had a thought saw a great example of a maggot feeder in this topic. The 3rd, 5th, 6th and last pic you should be able to see an icecream container with the sides cut out. The closed up container of maggots sits in a cut out on the lid so that when the maggots drop through they land inside the ice cream container and the birds can enter and pick them up. Hope these pics might make things a bit clearer.
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[E Orix]

To clear it up for me.
1.Are the Ants invading your fly box
2.when you take the out before feeding
3.When being fed to the birds

Invading the fly box. I stopped them invading by fitting 4 short metal legs on the box then standing each leg on a wide jar with water in it.

Keeping them out before feeding,stand your container in another with water, or carefully spray the outside very bottom with coopex etc, water is safer for the maggots.

When feeding out, Ants can be a real pest especially in Summer. Mike Fidler showd me his system and it really works
get a Metal Cake tray about 250mm wide with an upturn of 15mm high. You need two or three magnets greater than 15mm possibly 25mm high.
Place them on the tray(must be higher than the 15mm tray lip) You then need another metal cake tin greater than the 250 mm wide unit
Say 300/350mm with a 50mm high side.
Sprinkle ant powder into the lower tray,place the bigger tray over it and the magnets will hold both trays together. The gap should be too small for the birds to access, also that is why the top tray is bigger.
The ants must walk through the ant dust hence they die.This system can be used for fruit or anything you don't want the ants to get at.
If you don't want cake tins just get special sizes folded.

[benrayjay]

they are invading the container i have them in to mature, outside the fly box. they are taking the tiny maggots.

thanks for your suggestions will put them into use. My maggots seem to be taking a long time to mature, compared to what i have researched.

also i have put some more food in with the maturing maggots and they seem to of stopped bailing out of the container!

[Pete Sara]

they will stay in the container if it s bright, if you put them in the dark they will escape , plus if they are to hot they may bail on you as well . this time of the year (winter) can cause them to be small and slow to mature try putting a bigger wattage globe in....
also try some axel grease on the light cord . I have had problems with ants using it a s a bridge to get the maggots , justa a thought...pete

[benrayjay]

so you need to have the maggots under a light source of a night to stop them crawling out? i have followed directions from many sources and removed the container from the fly box after 2 days and put them into a larger container on the top of the box.

also i think i found the ants nest, in one of the gouldian nest boxes. hope i got them all!!!

[Diane]

After you have got rid of the ants, try spraying the area around the aviary a spray with Coopex, I do mine on a regular basis now after hearing about Coopex on the forum.