Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, I will be buying a few containers of mealworms from my store later. What do I need to do in order to raise my own from this batch, as well as gutload them?

Jeff

For gutloading mealies, just put them in a plastic bin of some sort and put down a couple of inches of nutritious bedding. I use this mix:
dry oatmeal
powdered milk
dry baby rice cereal
dry baby barley cereal
wheat germ
miner-all (2 teaspoons)
Give them a piece of veggie every other day to provide moisture (bits of romaine lettuce, baby carrot halves, or slices of potato work great).
For breeding, you will need to seperate the pupae (little white things that the mealies change into) from the mealies as you find them appearing or else the mealies will gnaw at them and kill them. Put the pupae in another container filled with bedding (even though they do not eat it) until they change once more into beetles. The beetles will eat the bedding as well as lay eggs in it. This works best in a room that stays around 80 degrees. Don't change the beetle's bedding because you may throw out the eggs or hatching mealies which are extremely tiny. Then you just have to raise the baby mealies until they are big enough to feed off.

Cleo
1:1 leos (6 eggs cooking)

What is miner??

Or is it supposed to be wheat germ miner?

Jeff

Miner-all is a vitamin/mineral supplement that lots of us on the forum use with our leos. I provide a small bowl of it in the tank as well as add it to the gutload. It (or some other type of mineral supplement) is essential for providing enough levels of calcium and D3. I don't really dust my leos insects except for when I am feeding them out of their bowls when I just put the mealies/waxies into the supplement dish. You can order Miner-all of many online sites for reptile supplies or can sometimes find it at reptile stores or pet stores. The rest of the items can be found at the grocery store.

Cleo
1:1 leos (6 eggs cooking)