General Information | Life Cycle | Rearing | Online Resources & Additional Information

General Information

Life Cycle

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Life cycle of the house fly	Adult and eggs of the house fly	Pupae development of the house fly	Adult house fly

Egg: The white eggs, about 1.2 mm in length, are laid singly but pile up in small masses. Each female fly can lay up to 500 eggs in several batches of about 75 to 150 eggs, each over a three to four day period. The number of eggs produced is a function of female size, which is principally a result of larval nutrition.

Larva: The mature larva is 3 to 9 mm long, typical creamy whitish in color, cylindrical but tapering toward the head. The head contains one pair of dark hooks. The posterior spiracles are slightly raised and the spiracular openings are sinuous slits which are completely surrounded by an oval black border. The legless maggots emerge from the eggs in warm weather within eight to 20 hours, and they immediately feed on and develop in the material where the eggs were laid. The full-grown maggots have a greasy, cream-colored appearance and are 8 to 12 mm long. The larvae go through three instars. When the maggots are full-grown, they crawl up to 50 feet to a dried, cool place near breeding material and transform to the pupal stage. High manure moisture favors the survival of house fly larvae.

Pupa: The pupae are dark brown and 8 mm long. The pupal stage is passed in a pupal case formed from the last larval skin which varies in color from yellow, red, brown, to black as the pupa ages. The emerging fly escapes from the pupal case through the use of an alternately swelling and shrinking sac, called the ptilinum, on the front of its head which it uses like a pneumatic hammer.

Adult: The house fly is 6 to 7 mm long, with the female usually larger than the male. The eyes are reddish and the mouth parts are sponging. The thorax bears four narrow black stripes and there is a sharp upward bend in the fourth longitudinal wing vein. The abdomen is gray or yellowish with dark midline and irregular dark markings on the sides. The underside of the male is yellowish. The sexes can be readily separated by noting the space between the eyes, which in females is almost twice as broad as in males.

Life Cycle information is taken from the University of Forida, Publication Number: EENY-48
Author: Hussein Sanchez-Arroyo, University of Florida
Photographs: Jerry F. Butler, University of Florida; Jim Kalisch, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Rearing

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This is a sleeve cage. It is a 5 gallon bucket with a hole cut in it to fit a 4 inch diameter pvc pipe that is around 10 inches long. You can go to the dollar store and buy a cheap long sleeve shirt and a pair of plus size panty hose (white or flesh). Put the panty hose on the top of the bucket tieing the legs tight around the rim. Slide the sleeve over the pipe and tie a knot in the end. You also need to get 300-500 flies for a breeder colony.
You then need 2 deli bowls and a cup for the pupae to hatch out of. In the deli cups are sugar and powered butter milk. Flies need cholesterol in their diet. The other is filled with aspen wood shavings and water so the flies do not drown. Flies need alot of water.
When the flies are around a week old they will start to exchange gentic material. You put a small piece of raw beef liver in their water bowl. Every 24 hours I remove the dish filled with fly eggs. They are the small white specs in the picture.
Preparation for fly egg hatching: I then fill a 1 gallon bucket with an inch of aspen shavings, a handful of dog food, and sprinkle some powered butter milk over all that.
Picture of the powdered buttermilk.
I then dump the water bowl containing the beef liver and fly eggs over the dog food and milk. I fill the bucket with water up to the rim of the wood. Do not use to much water or the baby flies will drown.
I put a flour sack rag over the top of the bucket and tie it off with a rubber band. You can buy the rags at Walmart in the towel section. I cut them up into 4 sections. The buckets can also be purchased in the paint section.
I put whole mess in a sweater box with a paper towel underneath the bucket.
In 4-7 days the baby flies are ready to pupate. They will let you know by soaking the cloth and some escape under the rubberband. Take the cloth of spilling some of the babies into the sweater box. Pour some water into the bucket up to rim of the wood shavings. Not to much water or you drown them. The water makes them mad and they crawl out of the bucket and under the paper towel to pupate. Forcing them out at 4 days makes a smaller fly for 2 week old baby chams.
This is the end results. Put about 100 pupae per deli cup and in 4-5 to days they will hatch out. The process does not smell as bad as you would think.
Picture of the fly incubating closet
The rearing text and images contributed by Walter

Flies should be fed with a high quality gutload prior to feeding.

Mail Order and Online Resources for Flies

Mail Order Resources:
Beneficial Insectary - pupae

Skipio's - pupae and larvae
American Cricket Ranch - pupae in small quantities
Superior Enterprises - deli cup containers and lids

Other Information Resources:
How to Make a Fly Trap: http://insected.arl.arizona.edu/flyrear.htm
Common House Fly Sheet: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/fly/Houseflyprintout.shtml
Dalabees's Anatomy of a Housefly: http://www.angelfire.com/me4/dalebeesbugs/anatomyfly.html
What is Musca domestica (contains interesting nutritional information): http://www.skipio.com/muscad1.htm
University of Florida Dept of Entymology (excellent photos & general information on life cycle): http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/urban/flies/house_fly.htm