Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok...what am i doing wrong??...i keep them on a bed of ESU cricket diet and give them slices of fruit for moisture...temp is in the upper 70's to low 80's and they die off so fast...i get 24 of them at a time and keep them in an open tupperware container...what's with them dying???

Give them a bed of oatmeal and bran. Make sure you give them a lot of moisture but not so much that you end up growing mold. If Supers are thirsty, they'll eat their neighbor. They require much more fluid than mealies do. For moisture, give them carrots, cabbage, potatoes, etc. I had about 20 of them for a while (thinking of trying my hand at breeding them but then changed my mind) and not one died off using this method.

I've never had good luck with raising supers but I have them self sustaining in the bed-a-beast substrait in my dragons tank. Seems that they are the most concentrated under the food and water tanks where the substrate is moist. I have also noticed that they ones I have ordered in bulk are usually shipped in peat. So, I am thinking that they may be easier to breed in a moist forest type substrate. What do you think? Maybe they could be kept like red wigglers in a vermiculture type set-up.
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

It doesn't offer them anything to eat. If you're just going to keep them alive until you can feed them to your critters, that's a perfect arrangement as they do require a lot of moisture. But, if you want to keep them around longer and possibly breed them, they need to be fed.

Just my experience. I keep them in Peat moss. I mist the peat moss once or twice a day. I also put carrots or lettuce. I also am trying Ajar ajar . It is something that you find in the CHineese supermarket. I boiled it with water and made a jello like substance the seme to like. I have bread them before and did real well with my group. I first saw a guy breeding thousands o pounds of super worms. I just scaled back what he did. Evry few weeks when the substance gets to look like a fine powder. I sift the worms out of the peat and add them to a fresh cage,

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Well, if I'm not mistaken, supers live in tropical, forest floor type environment. So, there wouldn't really be an abundance of grain unless the natives go feed them! Sorry, don't mean to be sarcastic but an insect that lives in the soil, like nightcrawlers, supers, pill bugs, etc, usually lives on decaying plant matter.

Seems to me that if you want your critters to have a varied diet then you would want to introduce different types of feeders. IF all the feeders are all fed the same stuff then doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose? I understand that we want the feeders to be nourished but each is going to provide a source of different minerals and such.

So, the supers in my viv are eating. IF they weren't they wouldn't still be alive and multiplying after 3 years! Yes, they have been living in there for that long! They clean up the dead leaves and other plant litter and dead feeders that escape into the soil. When I clean house I remove feces and leave the rest for the supers. Now mind you my dragons don't get them often, only when once happens to surface when they are digging or when I lift the water tank or feeder dish. They are usually there on the surface just like red wigglers would be.

In my viv I have mealies, supers, red wigglers and other beneficial varmints growing in the soil. I think it's more natural and it cleans up the environment for my animals via a living soil.

Just my opinion.
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Keep then in peat moss. I get around 1,000 at a time and keep them in nothing more than a small bin with 2" of peat moss in it. The container is only about 10 gallon sized and works great. They stay buried for the most part but they're easy to find and there's always a few on the surface. I only end up feeding them about every third day, and I give them various veggies and orange slices for moisture and food. If you want, add some cricket gutload to their peat moss for something to munch on. I rarely lose any (that I know of) and they seem to live forever in this setup (at least a few months or more).
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Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV
www.BLUEBEASTREPTILE.com

np