Breeding Superworms

[Jaylyn]

Hi!

Does anyone here breed their own superworms? I've gotten them to the mating beetle stage - but not any eggs that I can see. Do they need to be warmer than room temperature to lay eggs?? I have the beetles on a substrate of oatmeal/brans/wheatgerm with several pieces of dry, rotted wood. They get apple slices, collards and sweet potatoes slices for moisture.

How long from egg to a visible worm?

Thanks,
Jaylyn

[lance]

i dunno jaylyn i am trying to but mine are just starting now after months the beetles are already dead but i do have worms
i mean in a container not me personaly
my mealies seem to be coming along slowly to maybe to cold im not sure
a good person to talk to would be littleone down in the leopard gecko forum i know she raises mealies quit well maybe she knows about supers too
lance

[little one]

I haven't tried my hand with supers yet, but I'm thinking on it. :) My mealies are going great guns for me. :) I went to drgecko.com and looked up superworms there and there is a super good information sheet there telling you how to "grow" them. lol. I know that supers will die if they get too cold. They can be housed on the same type of substrate that mealies are on quite successfully (the Ultimate Feeder Diet, also at drgecko, is excellent).
I found with the mealies, that if you put in a piece of carrot or squash (it's the color that counts) and looked under it a couple of hours later, you can see the babies easily with the contrasting food color. :)
Good luck.

[Jaylyn]

I've got baby worms!

Thanks for the link little one! The Ultimate Feeder Diet is the AdCham gutload - but I had only fed it to the crickets. I'm now using it on the mealworms and supers - just to gutload - it's too expensive for the large number of worms we have.

Jaylyn

[Jaylyn]

Just a note on the Adcham/Ultimate Feeder Diet - it seems to be too high in calcium for crickets and isn't practical to feed as a maintanence food. I found a higher death rate with the crickets on it. Now I'm just using it to gutload the feeders two days before feeding them to the critters.

Jaylyn

[lance]

how about posting your succesful method of rearing superworms jaylyn

[Jaylyn]

I originally had them in the basement with space heaters - but I brought them upstairs to the kitchen table. Maybe that made the difference - or just lots of time - or luck???

Sorry - not much help. I keep the beetles on a bed of bran, wheat germ and oatmeal. Apple and/or sweet potatoe sliced thin for moisture and dry rotted hunks of wood (I had read somewhere they would lay in the wood - I'm not sure if they do - but they hide out under them anywhich way).

Jaylyn

[reverendsterlin]

well congrats Jaylyn, one thing I love about this site is the active thread area, reading here I get so much info on things I don't know or raise. Gosh with this site I think I'm in love, must be old, I'll drop a Viagra and get over it lol.