Blue Bottle Fly

Care and Storage of Blue Bottle Fly Larvae (Calliphora vicina)

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Arthropods Canada has the option to introduce a large species of Blue Bottle fly, Calliphora vicina, as an excellent feeder for arachnids, reptiles, and any other insectivores. We obtain the larvae freshly each week from a USDA-approved farm and ship them with permits to ensure the highest quality possible for your animals.

Storage Instructions

After you have received your larvae, you will need to refrigerate your larvae, at a temperature of 2–4°C or 36–40°F. The crisper drawer in the fridge is a perfect temperature and environment. Under these storage conditions:

If you ordered your larvae and selected overnight or next day shipping, the larvae are viable for a maximum of 30 days.

To ensure high hatch rates and quality, refrain from using larvae after 30 days in the fridge.

Storage beyond the optimum conditions will lower your hatch success rate significantly.

If you have selected regular letter mail, the shipment will typically land between Tuesday and Friday. Shipments that land outside of this timeline may still contain viable larvae but please do contact us if you have problems or concerns with this so we can make any modifications to our ship times and schedule.

To keep larvae and pupae healthy, take them out of the fridge for a couple of minutes every day. This will allow them to have a little "daylight cycle" of wiggle, but will also ensure that nothing is frozen, deaths cold related which can occur in too cold of fridges. Think of this as simulating long nights and short days which helps keep them alive.

Hatching Instructions

To allow pupation and eventual hatching:

Remove from refrigeration: Pull a bit of larvae out of the fridge and just let them sit at room temperature in a container that has air flow.

Set up your container: Get a clean, 0.5-1oz deli cup or container. Cut an exit hole for the fly that with cover taped on it for removal, and do a few ventilated holes as well.

Set in enclosure: Get a larvae or pupae and place it into the prepared container, then snap the lid down and place it in where your pet is (allow fly to hatch if pupae first). Remove the tape from the exit hole for the adult flies to emerge naturally for the spider to catch.

To keep a consistent supply of flies, stagger the removal of larvae from refrigeration every 2–3 days. This way you will have a steady cycle of pupation and hatching.

You should hatch flies out in groups of 3-5 pupae, one can hatch out 25 flies for a single spider and while some of these flies may get wasted that is okay, your spider is extremely well fed and happy.

Slowing Down and Handling Adult Flies

To handle adult flies easier you can put them in the freezer for 5-10 minutes after removing them from the fridge/freezer. This will slow down the flies or something like that and will give you approximately around 5 seonds - 30 seconds to move them to another container or take them out with tongs to directly feed from you to the pet or just toss loosely into enclosures and let pet spider hunt.

Care for Hatched Flies

Once hatched adult flies can be kept in a deli container in the refrigerator to slow their metabolism and give them a longer life span. If you want to give them energy:

Put a piece of paper towel that you have soaked in sugar water inside the deli container.

Take them out of the fridge for a few minutes once a day and let them wiggle around. This daily activity helps their health and gives them some routine, in order to simulate a natural day and night cycle.

Flies stored in this manner can be re-energized and ready to feed after warming back up to room temperature for a little while.

Nutritional Information and Feeding

Blue Bottle flies are a rich source of nutrition: 20% protein and 6% fat. You can gut load these (e.g. honey or powdered sugar) but this could cause some messes and "spit marks" in the enclosure. You can dust sluggish adult flies with supplements after pulling them from the refrigerator to help boost their nutritional value for feeding.

Blue Bottle flies are consequently very active and continue to stimulate the predatory instincts of your pets such as jumping spiders, mantises, frogs, chameleons, and bearded dragons (among many others). The movement can often unstick your pet from hunger strikes making for a great feeder insect.

For the best experience I recommend ordering a fresh supply every month to keep the ultimate freshness and so your pets can enjoy premium quality feeders.