Caring for/breeding phoenix worms (was buying bulk feeders)

[zeppy123]

I'd like to do something like dubia for Zalaika as they would always be plentiful and I wouldn't have to worry about stores carrying them or not. Money is not a big issue for me with food for Zalaika, but availability is. More often than not, the stores are out of the feeders she needs. I also don't drive due to perceptual issues and taking insects on mass transit doesn't work well. I rely on someone in my family to drive me to get food for her. I also would like to have a feeder that doesn't escape (I am in grad school but still live home). My parents LOVE Zalaika (we are all animal crazy, our pets are my parents' second set of kids and the children I won't be able to have for a while) but don't like the crickets much because they escape. My Mom wants me to buy a feeder that is easy to maintain so we don't have to go searching multiple stores for feeders, and doesn't escape. She has 4 week old crickets for now, but I think she'd be better with something smaller as soon as I can get it to her. All our animals eat top quality food, except for our cat who will only eat a certain type of Friskies canned food and nothing else (not our choice/we tried a couple expensive brands). I don't want to shortchange Zalaika in any way. She is too special. I think I'll drive my family a little crazy with my paranoia over her. I still have dreams of Zeppelin and the night I lost him and don't want to risk anything happening to her.

UPDATE: I ordered 500 phoenix worms from bugorder.com. What is the best way to care for these critters and can I breed them?

 

[Onlymediocre]

Phoenix worms are Black solider fly larvae...so, they are maggots... I dont think you want to breed flies? They are a great feeder, but I def wouldnt even know where to start breeding them or if you can, obvisiously the companies that sell them breed them, but they are flies and you would def have LOTS of escapes, and IDK what type of container you could even try to keep them in... You said you wanted to do something "like dubia", is there any reason you dont want to actually breed dubia? They are actually really easy to breed.

 

[zeppy123]

Dubia are illegal in Canda, but I've found some local phoenix worm providers through my reptiles society. That will save me on shipping.