Breeding and feeding meal worms

[drewlowe]

Hi i have a few questions about meal worms. I rarely ever used them in the past but am thinking about begining to use them. I was wondering what do you feed them. I have heard about oatmeal, but i would like to feed them a more nutrietional diet. also how do you breed them. how long does it take and what type of container do they need to be housed in? what temps do they need to be kept at seeing i live in a basement and all.

Any help would be appreciated or a nudge in the right direction. I'm also going to be doing my own research on them but would like other opinions from people that have done this.

Thanks

Jamie

[Chobdragon]

I use oatmeal as a somewhat substrate, but I feed my mealworms pumpkin pieces(gives reptiles a brighter appearance) or carrotts, potatoes, sweet potatos. and grapes! But I dont limit this. To breed em, u should just restrain from feeding like Id say 7 or 8 of em an put em in a seperate container. Then just keep feeding em, they will start to turn into beetles in a few weeks, then they will breed. remove the beetles after about a week then put em in another container, u will then have some new mealworms , and a nice continuous flow of Mealys!

[Linds]

I keep my mealies in a substrate of:

-12 grain mix
-mixed fruit baby cereal (pablum)
-rolled oats
-wheat germ
-rye flakes
-bottom of the bag of rodent chow, cat food, dog food, or whatever
-white bran
-red bran
-oat bran

Spirulina is also an excellent additive to the substrate mixture. For moisture I provide them with a variety of high calcium greens, vegetables, and fruits. They seem to enjoy just about everything :p I just keep mine in rubbermaids with no lids. I find if you have a lid, unless it is totally screened off, you end up having moldy substrate, which is a real pain if you need to toss it all out and already have an established colony. The warmer you keep them (within reason) the quicker they pupate and grow. Mine are kept between 80 and 85 degrees. Many people like to rotate their beetles around several containers, but its a little too tedious for my tastes, so I just have a couple colonies in several containers that I don't tamper with. As for starting your colony, I would have to disgaree with the above statement of starting off with 7 or 8 beetles, I would recommend starting off with at least 100 beetles :) Good luck with your mealie breeding ;)

[snakedude_03]

do you guys know if i can use corn meal?

[Edwin]

I follow dr.gecko's formula:

Its important to provide roughly 3 inches of high-quality and nutritious substrate for the worms to burrow in and eat. Many people keep their mealworms on a simple substrate of oat bran. We prefer to maximize the nutritional quality of the substrate since the mealworms actually eat it. We include a mix of:

12 grain cereal mix baby rice cereal rolled oats
white bran wheat germ red bran

We also sprinkle in the following items to boost the nutritional quality of the substrate even further:

alfalfa flakes dandelion flakes spirulina flakes
bee pollen dried sea kelp tropical fish flakes

www.drgecko.com

Hope this helps.

[depressor86]

do you have to take the adult beetles out of the container after they lay? i didnt and ive never seen any baby mealworms so im guessing they either arent breeding or the beetles are eating the mealworms?

[drewlowe]

ok question, ive been doing some reading on them and Only ONE of the care sheets ive seen says that the beetles fly. Is that true???

Ive also come across one that says you can leave all stages in the same contanier but all of the other ones says to separate into at least 3 different containers. I was wondering which is the best way to do this. I want to find out every thing i can before i start breeding them.

[Linds]

drewlowe,
1) Flour beetles don't fly, if they did I would be in trouble because I do not have lids on the mealie colonies :p
2)It's all a matter of preference, as I stated in my above post, I do not have the patience to pick and sort the little buggers, so I just leave them all in one container to do their thing (well I have a few containers, but I don't fiddle with any of them).

depressor86,
The mealie beetles can be left in the container. How long have you had your colony? What temperature are you keeping them at?

[drewlowe]

is the flour beetle the same as the darkling beetle. Cause everything i have read have said that darkling beetles was their name. I just don't know much about bugs lol i'm the same when it comes to fruits and veggies.but i'm trying to learn for my guys and girls.

[Linds]

Mealie beetles are also called flour beetles...

[Linds]

Mealie beetles are also called flour beetles. I'm not huge into bugs, but I;ve never heard them referred to as a Darkling beetle before? :dumb:

[drewlowe]

http://insected.arizona.edu/mealinfo.htm

http://www.insectlore.com/xinsectucational_stuff/mealworm_activity.html

http://www.nabluebirdsociety.org/mealworm.htm

Those are some of the sites i came across when i was looking for info. I don't know i quess thats their real name. if i'm looking at the wrong thing please let me know.

[WingedWolf]

I use a substrate of a mix of dry whole-grain baby cereals, and avoid oatmeal, as it's not very nutritious for the herps.
I then use fruit slices or soaked tissue or paper towel as a water source for them.

The beetles are a type of darkling beetle, so that is the correct name for them.

[Bryce Masuk]

They are by far the easyist bug to breed all you have to do is let them sit and give them carrots while they live in bran I had thousands soooo many i give a ton away...

[drewlowe]

thank you all for your imput.

I started the mealie breeding colony last night. as of right now i have rolled oats, rice baby cereal, powdered milk ( i read that off a site, is that ok for them to eat???) wheat germ, wheat bran

Is all of that ok to start??? i'm trying to find the rest. i have a friend thats going to pick up some bee pollen for me. i already have the tropical fish flakes. I just have to find out where i can find the rest of the stuff.

I'm also picking up some apples carrots and potatoes today.

Thanks again everyone.

[Linds]

An awesome place to find substrate ingredients real cheap is at the Bulk Barn :) I don't know if you guys have it down there... maybe its just a Canadian thing, but if you do its worth checking out ;)

[drewlowe]

nope nothing like that around me that i know of. I'm going to try to find a feed store cause i spend 20.00 yesturday on all the stuff i bought.

Is powder (condenced milk) ok to feed the mealies. thats the only thing i'm uncerten of.

[Linds]

Powdered milk is fine :) I don't use it personally, but have spoken with many people that do.

[Edwin]

I mix in some powder milk and fish flakes on my mealie's substrate. Works well so far. Also, I buy most of my stuff from Bulk Barn, it is the cheapest place to go, and they have most of the items I need. For certain items, you could try health food stores, but they are really expensive, and it is difficult to buy small quantities. For example, I got really weird looks when I ask for a small amount of bee pollen and dried sea kelp.

[Bartman]

i have not tried this yet but someone on this site explained to me that you must take around 10 king mealies out and put them into a rubbermaid. Than you are suppossed to put a lot of oatmeal or the stuff that i get when i buy them from a store. Fill it really high so they can burrow and they will eventually become cacoon type things and you take them out and when the beatles hatch you need to place a piece of cardboard in the new rubbermaid. Than feed the beatles the same diet and they will breed and lay eggs in the cardboard. I dont know if this will work but it sounds like what everyone else has been saying and this guy, who i dont remember, sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

good luck...i think im gonna try it my self soon so if you do it now tell me how it turns out :)



Bartman

[drewlowe]

sorry i forgot about this question what do their temps need to be at. right now i have it at room temp (which happens to be the basement cause i live in the basement) which is around the lower to mid 70's. Is that ok???

[Linds]

They will be fine at that temp, but their production will be a fair bit slower than if they were kept at temps in the low-to-mid 80's.

[drewlowe]

ok i started with 600 mealies should i go get more that way i can still feed my leos some gut loaded mealies without having to diminish the ones i have in there already. Maybe like 1000 more or would that be too many. currently i have 8 leos that are loving the mealies. But i don't want to go to far overboard.

[Linds]

Even at 85 degrees, my mealies took months to become even semi-established. I would definitely keep a bit of a surplus for use as food, in addition to the breeders. However they will pupate after a few weeks, so don't get anymore extra than you would use in 2 weeks I would say to be safe. You may want to keep your feeder mealies in an even cooler place in your basement to slow down the cycle so they stay mealies longer ;)

[drewlowe]

thanks for all the info linds.
i appreciate all your help. and i'm sure my geckos will too.

[Linds]

No problem :) Good luck with your mealie project ;)

[Pookie]

after reading all of this, i'm inspired to start my own mealie colony! I'm feeding a cham (who eats like a pig) and 2 leo geckos. What size container did you say to use? And what do i do if the colony's population gets out of control? :) Do you think it's really worth it to breed these little "buggers"? Or is it the same price to just buy them?

[drewlowe]

i have them in a 2 feet long 1 foot wide, and 1 1/2 foot tall stackable container thing that was $2.00 it cost me then their food cost about $20.00 and 600 mealies cost me a little over $7.00 and i just ordered 1000 more mealies that cost me$7.00. but i belive that food will last quite awhile.

If this gets out of hand i will just give some away to some of my friends that have leos. i'm sure they will apprciate that.

I also think i will save some money doing it myself. I usually go through a case of crickets every week to week and a half. now i may only have to order crickets once a month with me breeding my own mealies. i figured it out to be around $40.00-$60.00 savings a month. and now even more since its breeding time.

[Edwin]

Well, since I started breeding mealies, I have stopped buying them almost entirely. They are so easy to breed and maintain, unlike other feeder insects.

[Linds]

Originally posted by Edwin
Well, since I started breeding mealies, I have stopped buying them almost entirely. They are so easy to breed and maintain, unlike other feeder insects.

Couldn't agree more....... if only superworms were as simple to breed :rolleyes: :confused:

[Pookie]

Ok so i'm just a bit confused. Once the mealworms turn into beatles....what do you put them in? I understand what the mealworms themselves must be in but i'm not clear on what to do once they actually transform into beatles.

[drewlowe]

thats a good question pookie

I myself just started doing this so i'm not 100% sure. But i have been told to leave the beetles in there. Give me a few weeks and i'll tell ya how it's going with my colony.

so far i have 2 alien looking things. I know thier just bugs and there going to get fed to my leos anyway, but since i'm just starting to do this i think it's kinda cool.

[depressor86]

ive had a few attempted colonies where nothing came of them. i was keeping about 50 beetles in a big container with oats and bran as a substrate. i had a few pieces of egg carton in and offered veggies. kept them at room temperature and waited. eventually all the beetles died off and nothing else happened.
is the temperature wrong? or do they need something else to lay eggs in?

[Linds]

Pookie,
Just put the mealies into a container full of substrate and thats it. You don't need to do anything different for them as they turn into beetles, just keep treating them as though they were worms ;)

depressor86,
What temperature were you keeping them at? How long did you wait before assuming it was unsuccessful? They don't require anything to lay their eggs in other than the substrate you are keeping them in. I find my mealie beetles don't have as long a lifespan as everyone elses do, however I've never had problems with them reproducing. It usually just takes several months for them to be noticably reproducing I found. Its best to start out with as many beetles as you can. I have one colony that I threw out because the substrate went moldy, well I actually misplaced it (back when I used to have lids with holes in them), well more than a year later I find the thing and there are always loads of mealies and a few beetles, I don't feed them and the substrate is all mold. I feel bad throwing them away, but I'm sure not gonna use em! Once they start they are very resilient!

[WingedWolf]

Yeah, it can take several months for those eggs to hatch and turn into new worms big enough for you to see. Just keep the substrate, and wait.
The beetles do die long before the eggs hatch.