Aussie Finch Forum

Do you guys breed your mealworms/maggots? If you do is this how you do it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN3w9-JK ... re=related
Cheers, Mike

Any one?

That's one way of breeding them. They are simple to breed compared to crickets and maggots.

go to section on Diet and food, then do a search using key words, FLY BOX, there is a good thread of comments started by GP Finches, photos etc from Sam Davis on set up. Im sure this will help.

Cheers, Mike

djb78 wrote:I'm sort if a bit lost at ruddies not needing live food I've only had young when live food has been available and abandon nests when I haven't supplied them. Painted firetails will breed without live food but will do much better with them. I have found that with my painteds that in a large colony I've had better success than with single pairs but only problem is I don't know where evry pairs neat is and can get confusing at times. Its a good bird for you to start on but as jay said damp floors will be a killer with them, they don't mind cold weather but hate cold winds blowing on them. With the absence of live food you will have to look at maybe substituting it with greens seeding grass heads and even egg.

I breed both painteds and ruddies in a colony situation with a lot of live food. I have never had any obvious aggression between either poainted or ruddy pairs. The painteds and ruddies both have produced a respectable number of chicks fledged.

In a few months i'm gonna try and get a hold of both species (ruddie and painted) and start breeding my own meal-worms, I've watched a number of youtube vids about the meal-worms life cycle and how easy they are to breed.
Cheers, Mike

Mealworms might be easy, but they are very slow - long generation time. They are also not well balanced nutritionally. Maggots are easy, fast to produce, and nutritionally well balanced. All finches will take maggots.

Kenny I have also breed ruddies in a flight containing 3prs and have had little issues except the odd tiff here and there, but I have never had any extra ruddies in there just pairs.
Mealworms are a slow starter but with a good setup and time you can have a lot of them for when breeding starts, with only a few pairs you won't need a huge amount of mealworms to feed everyday as these two speices don't require the same amount of live food as a pair of cordons which basically only feed their young live food. As for breeding maggots yes they are a better food and will be eaten first they are somewhat harder to setup for breeding, heat source is required proper food is also needed where the meal worm doesn't have to have a heat source and food well vegetable scraps is what i use. Start off small and easy like with mealworms and once you feel ready there are plenty of people here that grow their own maggots that can assist younwith making a good flybox.

Thankyou everyone for you help, much appreciated
Cheers, Mike