# Wild fruit flies for food?



## DendroMan420 (Jul 6, 2010)

Hey everyone, i have a quick question about feeding. I have 4 cultures that have alot of maggots but no fruit flies because i ran out. I put a container outside with fruit in it and today i noticed alot in there. Would it be okay to feed those to dart frogs? I have 2 leucs and 2 azereus, it it safe or harmful? I would also like to know if i could put them in my cultures to get more larvae.


----------



## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Well definitely don't mix them with your cultures because they will all turn into flying flies, not sure about feeding them.


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Any time you feed wild insects you are taking a slightly larger risk probably then with store bought/cultured feeders....They could introduce outside pathogens into the media, or even into your vivs(mites, parasites), or if they have ingested pesticides (but not died obviously) or something along those lines then the frogs would be exposed to it... Of course there is no guarantee that any feeder insects you buy will be 100% safe from such risks either.

I sometimes put small cultures in my tank and let the fruitflies I have naturally from escapes in the past (mostly from using cultures where the flies regained the ability to fly) find them. The frogs eat the flies but the flies usually manage to lay eggs, so then the frogs eat the larva also...and then the new flies when they hatch. 

Introducing wild flies will make you flightless into flying flies...U can still use those to feed, but they are a real pain and not quite as easy for the frogs to catch.

So basically its a little more risk, and its up to you whether or not you find it acceptable. It would probably just be better to go to petco and get some cultures to hold u over till you can order more flies and/or media, or find some pinhead crickets or some other acceptable feeder. If you have few other options though then you know you gotta do what you gotta do to keep the frogs alive and hope it doesn't bite you in the butt later. 

You would probably be ok feeding outside ff's but why risk it if you don't have to? Now the question is...Do you have to?

Good Luck!

Dave


----------



## carola1155 (Sep 10, 2007)

You could always just take a spoon to the cultures and scoop out some maggots... Put them in your viv on a deli cup lid or somthing. My azureus readily eat them.


----------



## Jadenkisses (Jun 9, 2010)

carola1155 said:


> You could always just take a spoon to the cultures and scoop out some maggots... Put them in your viv on a deli cup lid or somthing. My azureus readily eat them.


Yeah, I agree - try the maggots rather than taking the risk of feeding wild prey items.


----------



## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

field collecting used to be a pretty common practice, but due to the ease of simply ordering some flies online, it has fallen out of favor. normal FFs are perfectly fine to feed, some of the biggest breeders i know o use regular plain jane flying melos. there is always some risk, but in a time of need..... well thats your call. i wouldnt hesitate (other than i cant stand flying FFs) to feed wild flies to the frogs if i was unable to procure food items.

james


----------



## DendroMan420 (Jul 6, 2010)

Thanks for your replies, thats actually a way better idea. Im sure they'll love not having to chase them around. Ok so i understand the consequences of using wild fruitflies. Im using a big 50 gallon vivarium for my dart frogs and i wouldnt mind having some flying fruitflies in the tank because the top is sealed and it would be more natural but just to clarify, how much safer is cultured fruitflies then wild fruitflies.


----------



## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

i dont think there is a real answer to that, we would have to sample a number of both store bought and wild collected animals and see exactly what they are carrying with them. but like i said, it used to be a very common practice. i wouldnt worry about it but thats just one persons opinion.

james


----------



## DendroMan420 (Jul 6, 2010)

Okay well i called the petstore and fortunately hes gonna give me some more fruitflies out of his culture and then ill add some to my other cultures. I got one more question though, if i was to raise 1 culture of wild fruitflies can there larvae be just as bad as wild fruitflies?


----------



## heatfreakk3 (Oct 15, 2008)

Dude people are trying to tell you not to use wild fruit flies.... and you keep insisting on using wild flies...


----------



## crzsnwbdr (Sep 23, 2010)

Haha, that was quite a necro of a post. 

On the topic of wild fruit flies, I was in the same situation as the OP two weeks ago. Due to my bad timing of culture building and receiving a dead culture in the mail, I had nothing else but the wild flies I could catch outside with the same media mix I use for my cultures.

Although I didn't catch enough to be worthwhile to feed my froglets, I certainly had an abundant amount of larva to scoop from the walls of the cup a few days later. The fruit flies at my house are notably larger than the cultured ones, and so the larva themselves are big, fat, slow, and juicy -- definitely good eats considering how quickly the frogs eat them up! Even now I provide a good wild larva-snack every few days to fatten up my froglets. Since then my frogs look even more robust around the waist and look to be growing well.

Now I'm no bug or frog expert (heck, I'm just a beginner) but in my opinion I think it's fine; frogs in nature (I know, I know.. ours are all domesticated) eat all sorts of random bugs, so why can't ours? They can't be so genetically pure-bred-safe that any type of wild insects or bacteria could jeopardize their well-being, can they?  I'm not interested in arguing my opinion, but if the topic is debatable, I wouldn't mind reading a discussion on it.


----------



## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

How do you know your next door neighbor didn't just spray those flies with poison? 
Doug


----------



## Tony (Oct 13, 2008)

Pumilo said:


> How do you know your next door neighbor didn't just spray those flies with poison?
> Doug


Because they are not dead?


----------



## crzsnwbdr (Sep 23, 2010)

Pumilo said:


> How do you know your next door neighbor didn't just spray those flies with poison?
> Doug


Good question. I know my nearest neighbors don't use pesticides -- but aside from that I can't say.



Tony said:


> Because they are not dead?


Haha, I like this answer.


----------

