William Astor schrieb:
@ Julian,
@ Hans,
As far as I know, Drosophila [ Drosophilien ] are the same organisms as Fruit flies [ Fruchtfliegen ]. Aren’t they the same ?
Do you know whether thawed out frozen bloodworms are liked by African finches ?
You also said that you know of a breeder who feeds Daphnia straight out of a pond.
Daphnia straight from a pond will probably be full of parasitic protozoa. I normally sterilize fly larvae [ larvae of the housefly ] by cooking them for 2 minutes in boiling water. I then let them dry in the sun and then freeze them. It works very well. My information tells me that boiling water even for one minute should kill all bacteria, fungi, protozoa, worms in it.
Do you know whether this breeder sterilizes the Daphnia that he catches from a pond ?
I would like to catch my own mosquito larvae,sterilize them in boiling water and then freeze them. But I do not know whether Northern European mosquito species are good for African finches. Do you know anyone who feeds these to African finches ?
Thank you.
William
Some questions have been answered already.
Thawed out red mosoquitolarvae aren't easily eaten insects, sometimes it's necessary to let your birds getting used to this type of livefood.
Never feed
live red mosquitolarvae because they are catched in the most dirty waters you can imagine.
By the freezing process all these bad influences of the original water they live in is 'killed'.
Feeding live white or black mosquitolarvae is a different story because these come from much 'cleaner' water.
There are several breeder I know who feed them to their African Finches, those breeders are mainly breeders of the small African finches (Genus Estrilda, Uraeginthus, etc)
Daphnia: The breeder I was talking about catches them in a clean pond and feeds them alive after rinsing them out under tapwater.
I don't think that there are much risks feeding live daphnia as long as you catch them in clear water with not too many ducks.
About catching mosquitolarvae yourself, well to be honest, good luck, I don't think it's worth the effort.
You can better save your time and go to a petshop and buy those slabs of reds for a just a few penny's.
You can buy them in blisters, but the slabs/slices are lower in price