House got infested

My house recently got infested with these little buggers, fruit flies. Which serves as a real problem for me since I gutload with various fruits. I'll get my gutloading container out in the morning and find it infested with them day after day. It doesnt seem to hurt the crickets at all though.

Should I be worried about them with the crickets? I know Leon doesn't mind them, I've seen him snap a few of them up once or twice after they got loose in his cage when I put the crickets in their from the gutload container.

And any suggestions on what I should gutload the crickets in? I dont gutload them all at once, I put the next days rations in the box the night before and let them load up over night. I have air holes poked all around the sides and top, and the fruit flies manage to come out of freaken NO WHERE. Any suggestions? I gutload with Flukers orange cubes, pre packaged mandarin oranges (which is very useful because they dont have the skin on them like fresh mandarin's and they're soaked in fruit juice), diced apples and leafy greens.

Anything else I might need to be worried about?

I'm not aware of any concerns u shoukd have other than when u open the lid they feel like there all over you.. I just threw a towel over the container every morning and ran outside open container and shake till they all leave.. just dont lose crickets! took a week or so to stop seeing them.. change ur fresh gutloads daily and it'll stop.them.

I've been doing the same thing. I had a big plastic pretzel container, prolly like a foot and a half tall that I use to put the crickets in, so they wouldnt jump out trying to get them in. And when we got the fruit flys, over night they absolutely INFESTED that pretzel container lol. I just ended up throwing it out in our woods it was so bad. I've had to start keeping the crickets that are in the box under a blanket, in attempt of dodging another swarm of them being born.

I also cut fruits out for awhile and used sweet potato romaine lettuce kale carrots things like that with dry gutload and its helps deminish them.. evil things... there gone now so i re incorporated fruits and such they were more attracted to.. I found the other key is switching gutload daily to keep it fresh!.. have fun!

I would use a rubber band and a piece of linen to keep the fruit flies out if you care to. There might be some concern about parasites with wild fruit flies but I would think for the most part they are fine. If you're feeding wild bugs it is a good idea to have a fecal done every 6 months anyway.

I know this wasn't the point of the post but I couldn't resist: those flukers orange cubes are worthless and expensive for what they are (orange colored gelatin essentially). Also the sugars in the processed mandarins might not be recommended. I often gut load with ONLY the skin for the citrus portion as the rind is where most of the nutrients are. There are lots of great threads and blogs on gut loading I would suggest you check out especially Sandrachameleon's she is the resident bug nutrition expert.

DanSB said:

I would use a rubber band and a piece of linen to keep the fruit flies out if you care to. There might be some concern about parasites with wild fruit flies but I would think for the most part they are fine. If you're feeding wild bugs it is a good idea to have a fecal done every 6 months anyway.

I know this wasn't the point of the post but I couldn't resist: those flukers orange cubes are worthless and expensive for what they are (orange colored gelatin essentially). Also the sugars in the processed mandarins might not be recommended. I often gut load with ONLY the skin for the citrus portion as the rind is where most of the nutrients are. There are lots of great threads and blogs on gut loading I would suggest you check out especially Sandrachameleon's she is the resident bug nutrition expert.

Click to expand...

Yah I told my my mom to get the cricket diet from a specific pet store(I think its basically bug burger), and she came back home with the orange cubes from pet smart

The packaged oranges are in 100% fruit juice, not syrup. I just looked at the ingredients, they are in white grape juice I think, which i doubt it has THAT much sugar. And thanks for the advice on the skin part. I'll try it out

And I'm feeding store bought crickets and wormies. Does anybody know if stores online will sell a horworm and butterworm mix? Like give you a combo deal. Lol probably not but it would be pretty cool