Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am trying to start a mealworm colony. How many beetles should I maintain to produce enough worms for 3 leopards? Right now I have probably 100 beetles. I am assuming that over the last 1-2 weeks alot of eggs have been laid. I know it takes a little while for the eggs to hatch and worms to grow. I would like to hear how many beetles you guys/gals keep? Is 100 over doing it? Is 10 good enough? This is my first trial, so I don't know myself.

Thanks,
Matt

Im also on my first trial... testing out about 20 mealworms to morph as beetles to lay eggs. I read that a beetle can lay between 250 - 1000 eggs during their lifetime (depending on their food & water source). So if you have 100 beetles...and assume that you have 50 males and 50 female that laid 500 eggs each, that's approx. 2500 mealworms Depending on how much you feed your leos, that should be a pretty good colony and just keep expanding and placing your pupae in for breeding. I only have one leo that eats mealies as their staple & 2 fire bellied toads that eat mealies once in a while, so I'm only doing 20 pupae in at a time

I guess the two of us will have to see how it goes after this 1st trial Take care and good luck!

[aimEe]
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0.1.0 Albino Leopard Gecko (Marlene)
0.0.2 Fire Bellied Toads (Norman & Forman)
1.0.0 Fighting Fish (Blue Balls)
1.0.0 Black Lab / Pit Bull (Mikey)
aimee.i8.com

Well, I actually bought 3000 mealworms on Oct 4th. Right now I probably have 100 beetles and 500 pupae. The first 4 weeks, I didn't have any pupae, then they started changing so fast, that I decided to refrigerate a bunch of the worms or I wasn't going to have any left. I know I will have to buy more before I have my own mealworms. Just didn't know how many beetles I should maintain. I would rather have too many, and work my way down, than doing it the other direction.

Matt

50 beetles X 500 eggs would be 25000!
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You can never have just one gecko. Actually it is almost impossible to have two
My Geckos

Matt-

You are on a good start.

A darkling female beetle can lay up to 500 eggs! Not sure if you knew that, but they can. I have many, too many beetles and I literally have thousands (probably lots more) of mealworms. I dont know where to go with them! LOL They just keep reproducing.

I have a care sheet on my website about breeding mealworms if you are interested in looking at that. Its under the care section on my site.

But I think you are on a good start with your colony just to feed 3 leos.

I need more just because I have lots of geckos I need to feed. Thats alot of mouths.

Shayna
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Shayna
www.LeoLoversLizardLounge.com