Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

I am about to start off my own colony of mealworms. I need a couple of tips....

I have got about 10 beetles in my tray and I have put about another 10 pupae into a pot waiting for them to turn, I read that the beetle and worms will kill the pupae. The rest of my worms are turning into pupae at about 2 a day now.

I have got my worms and beetles in the same tray should they be kept separte with the beetles in thier own tray just for laying eggs in?

Will the worms or beetles eat the eggs that are laid?

Thanks.
Sutmae

Just toss all your pupae and beetles into a container filled with a good gutload mixture and let nature do the rest... Keep veggies available for moisture and vitamins. Think of it like this... each female beetle will lay 500 eggs per clutch.. sometimes 10 clutches or more in her life cycle(Depending on food quality)...thats 5000 eggs... per female...and you'd have hundreds of females. if all the eggs survived.. you'd be swamped with un-needed mealies. I breed both mealies and superworms.. I use the same gutload for them

8 cups cheap dog food (FMV, Pet Pride, high grain and protein content)
2 lb Black OilSunflower seeds.. unshelled,
About 6 lbs of rabbit pellets and one box of any kind of flake cereal.. corn, rice, wheat, brain etc.

Grind all that up in a food processor or coffee grinder.. and that should be enough food for a couple months done correctly.

Toss your mealies into it.. and let them breed.. Make sure you have one drawer where you always have reserves...that you don't touch unless another drawer is getting low or has died off for some reason.
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Lucien

1.0 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)
3.1 Leopard geckos (2 Blizzard and 2 het Blizzard)
0.1 Savannah Monitor
13 rats
12 Gerbils
2 Dogs
3 cats
1 Albino Corey (fish)

I agree except that I breed & raise them up on wheat bran, which I get from the feed store for cheap. About $12 CDN for a huge bag (2'x4'x8". Then I move worms to gut load bin before feeding off. Just a suggestion to save a few bucks.

Bruce

May save.. but in the long run, a varied diet for the insects...gives them more nutritional value when they're fed off... Wheat bran just isn't enough in my opinion.. *shrugs* And really, my mix isn't all that expensive. the dog food... $3.49 for a 20 lb bag... the sunflower seeds.. $5 for a 10 lb bag.. the cereal.. $1.19 and below.. And the rabbit pellets $10 for a 50lb bag... And right there you have more than enough food for everything. Truth is.. this is the basic mix I feed to all my rodents as well.. so I just take a bowlfull and grind it up when I need to.
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Lucien

1.0 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)
3.1 Leopard geckos (2 Blizzard and 2 het Blizzard)
0.1 Savannah Monitor
13 rats
12 Gerbils
2 Dogs
3 cats
1 Albino Corey (fish)

I use un-medicated chicken layer mash, or Layana. It is formulated for egg production and is pretty much complete as a gut load too. Since it is formulated for egg laying it can remarkably increase your worm production.

I can get a 50# bag for $6-$7 at any feed store. That 50# bag lasts me about 2 years. I am feeding small mealies to anywhere from 20 to 200 MHD babies at a time and am still selling off 100 here and there to folk in town when they can't make the 70-mile trip to the nearest pet store.

That's a value that's hard to beat
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

I'm planning to switch to the laying feed after my move....Heading back to VT where I can find these things for cheap due to the fact its mostly farm country... Here in the city I've had to do the best I could...The feed stores here are kind of.. idiotic.
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Lucien

1.0 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)
3.1 Leopard geckos (2 Blizzard and 2 het Blizzard)
0.1 Savannah Monitor
13 rats
12 Gerbils
2 Dogs
3 cats
1 Albino Corey (fish)

With just 10 beetles, it will be a while before you get good production. If you are intending to breed mealworms, I would suggest starting with a LOT more worms to get more pupae to get more beetles...aka, more baby mealworms.

When not provided adaquet moisture source, I guess it is possible that the mealworms may eat pupae, but don't think it be anything to worry about. I do like to seperate the pupae, which is typically found on the surface of the substrate, and place into holding containers. Daily I check the container to see if any have emerged as beetles and transfer them into the beetle container, which is set-up the same as the mealworm container.

The benefit of seperating the beetles from the mealworms is that you can keep containers of various sizes. Each month I move beetles into a new container. But if you don't mind fishing for a size you need later on, you can keep everyone in the same container. It is just a matter of convience in the future...

Mealworm beetles are darkling beetles. The eggs they lay are tiny tiny tiny. They are sticky and are quickly coated with particles. I doubt they intentionally eat the eggs since it will be a like a speck of dust.

I have a website with information about mealworms (aka darkling beetles) if you want to know more about their life cycle. Breeding them is very easy. But, as I mentioned before, if you want more baby worms, get more beetles.

www.polliwog-design.com/mealworms.html
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~ Juli ~
www.Polliwog-Design.com