How to present live food?

[Bosco15]

Hi all.
New to finch keeping. Have set up aviary with three pairs of Zebras. Very happy with their antics.
I have been researching info on feeding, but haven't learnt on how to feed live food. Is there a prefered method of presenting maggots and meal worms. I imagine that they would just crawl out of a bowl.
Also interested in fruit fly. I followed a link for DIY trap but link didn't work. How do you serve up fruit flies?
Thanks everyone.

[Buzzard-1]

I only use termites. I serve them in stainless steel cat bowls easy to clean and have slippery sides to prevent escapees.

[mickw]

G'day Bosco, no real need to feed your Zebs with live food, they will do fine with dry & sprouted seed and green grass seed heads and other greens....

However, to answer your question.......I use stainless steel bowls and my mealworms and termites dont generally get out.....though I need to replace/wash the bowl each week or so to avoid the build up of dirt/grime which in turn provides grip for the tasty little buggars to climb..........my main problem actually is black ants which love to take the termites and mealworms.

Havent done the ferment fly trap thing but recall others have described a bowl half buried in the floor with a heap of fruit scraps inside. Theres wire over the top to stop the birds directly accessing the fermenting fruit.............they pick the fly off as they rise.......

But as I said earlier, dont worry about live food with Zebs, just keep up the greens.......off the floor too......and remove stuff from the day before........gotta think what it would be like if we had to eat off the same floor every day without a fridge

[Jayburd]

I agree with zebs don't need livefood.
however, with fruit flies you don't serve them up. You have (like stated previously) a bowl or jar that you put fermenting fruit in and cover with wire. Birds will catch the flies on the wing as they rise form the jar/bowl.
I think with other bird species (in articular waxbills and other african finches, which are the main consumers of live food), the birds would have finished the maggots/termites before they got the chance to climb out!!

[Diane]

As I only have one or two pairs of live feeders in an aviary at a time, ants were a bit of a worry. What I did was put the bowl with the mealworms/maggots/livefood inside another bigger bowl with water surrounding it. The mealworms had their own little island! Birds easily accessed the mealworms and there was another source of water for them. Between this tactic and spraying Coopex on a regular basis the ants seem to stay out.

[Bosco15]

Cool.
Thanks all for your help.
I'm glad to know that Zebras don't require live food, but might give the fruit fly thing a go, if for no other reason than to give the birds something to do. Lol.