mealies

[RaVeNo888o]

Hi, i am getting a crested gecko soon, could be a week, could be a few weeks..part of its diet will be meal worms. Should i get some now and start breeding them already?

Also, i read a few websites about breeding them and it seems easy. i just have one question that wasnt uniform throughout all the sites.

Some said to have 2 containers for you mealies..keep the mealies in one, then when they turn into beetles put them in the other one and let them breed and lay eggs there. Once the eggs hatch and they grow large enough to handle, put the worms back into the main tank. so whenever they turn to beetles just keep putting them in the breeding tank.

But some sites just have one main tank that they all stay in...the worms and beetles are in the same one.

which one is better? what do you guys use?

also, what do i do with the beetles after they die? just chuck em in the garbage? or do the mealies eat them since they are decomposers?


oh ya. how many will i need initially in order to start a colony of them.

thanks,
Kyle

[RaVeNo888o]

ok, ive read some of the older threads and i think i will just leave them all in one bin.

I plan to use rolled oats and whole wheat flour, can i put rice cereal like rice crispies in the mix as well? or cherrios?

do you guys put anything in the tub with them to lay thier eggs on? like egg cartons or something?

[RaVeNo888o]

anyone?

thanks

[MartinW]

Hi Raven, I put baby rice cereal and dry cat food with my mealies. I use two containers but I don't think it's necessary for breeding. One of them contains the left over mealies I bought, the other one is for breeding. I have tons of baby mealies growing. I also put in a log for them to hide under, and I heard they can use the log to lay eggs on. I didn't disenfect the log though which I probably should have done, but so far there hasn't been any problems. Oh, and it took a couple months for the babies to start hatching, so I'd start as soon as you can.

Martin

[HeatherRose]

I bought 50 mealies from the petstore to start my colony, and it's doing well, I have enough mealies and extras for friends :)

Mine are in mostly bran and 12-grain cereal, all of which cost 30 cents for a huge bag at Bulkbarn. They also get a mix of different fishfoods.

I have one container for beetles and once in a while I dump their substrate (and baby mealies and eggs) into the mealie container....I heard you can put cardboard in with the beetles and they'll lay eggs on it....but it's not working for me :(

You probably won't have babies in a few weeks, so you could buy a bunch of mealies for food, and save half of them and let them pupate and become beetles :)

Good luck :D

[RaVeNo888o]

alright thanks..
what is the main difference between the baby rice cereal , and regular rice cereal? would the regular stuff do fine for this purpose? it would just be mixed in with the other stuff anyways.

i think i will try the one container method and see how that goes, and if not, i will try the 2.

think ill buy 100. not sure how soon i am getting the crestie. he is ready to go, but may not be able to actually get him for a few weeks...could be sooner though..with 100, i should have some to feed and then leave the rest to do some growing and breeding.

just curious, what do you guys use for your containers?

[HeatherRose]

Mealies are so fun :D

I use a kritter keeper (smallest one available) for my mealies...and a tupperware container from the dollar store (it's small square and shallow) for my beetles. I had to poke holes in the lid though, took a while :P

[RaVeNo888o]

how small is your critter keeper? You know those plastic oval shaped ones with the clear blue lids? well i have the smallest one of those, but i thought it would be too small for so many mealies, plus the beetles

[HeatherRose]

my keepers rectangular, clear with a blue lid...about 2 1/2 by 6 inches? it's big enough :)

my beetles have more space, about 6x6 inches.

[RaVeNo888o]

some places have suggested that you remove the pupae from the mealworm bin because they might eat them. do i really have to worry about this? and if i remove them, can i just put them in a container without the oat etc.. bedding? they dont eat in that stage do they?

also, i was just wondering how many mealworms i should make sure i always have on minimum to keep the colony going..what i mean is obvioulsy some will be used to feed my crestie, but should i always make sure i have say , 50 worms? (not including eggs and bettles etc...

[MartinW]

If you want to be on the safe side it might be good to not use up your breeding colony until the baby mealies grow up to be fairly large, or even until some of the babies pupate then turn into beetles. Of course if you have a lot of beetles then I wouldn't worry about it. Even only 50 sounds like enough. I have several hundred. My mealie cage is 13"x18"x7"(high).

I keep mealies, aliens, and beetles together and I haven't seen any problems.

Martin

[MartinW]

One more thing. This was suggested by someone else here but I don't remember who it was. If you want to get rid of the shedded skin then bring the container outside and blow the skin out. It works very well.

Martin

[eyespy]

Baby cereals tend to have less sugar, so you get more nutrition and less empty calories.

[RaVeNo888o]

oh, ok, thanks for the suggestions martin and thanks eyespy..

i think i will buy 100 or so to start a colony, and leave them alone, and buy seperate ones for feeding until i can rely on the ones i have bred.
i am goin this afternoon to pick up my crestie so i will let you guys know how it goes..i will probably pick some mealies up mid week and just feed baby food till then

[RaVeNo888o]

for feeding i will need really small mealies right? my cresties is only a month old, about 2 inches long..is the rule the same as for cricks..the width between the eyes?

[drewlowe]

I tried to use the 1 bin method and it didn't work for me. I use bigger stackable bins i bought from walmart for somewhere around 2 dollars a piece. I use oats, wheat germ, wheat bran, rice baby cereal, evporated milk, tropical fish flakes, and carrots (for moisture). there are other things you can use also. i had the problem that the mealies ate the "aliens" or would eat the beatles. so i started separting the "aliens into the other bin. so in one bin i have mealworms, and the other bin is "aliens" and the beatles. And it's been working out very well for me. But i also started off with 3,000 mealies.

[RaVeNo888o]

then when the beetles lay eggs and baby mealies are born, you take out the mealies and put them back in with the other mealies? how long does it take the baby mealies to be big enough to remove?

[RaVeNo888o]

Hey...i bought 100 mealies the other day and i have them in roughly a 1'x1' rubbermaid..with about 2 inches of substrate (oats and wheat bran) ..i have 4 of those small carrotts in there and 2 potatoe halves..
Is that enough of the fresh food to provide water for them? The carrots have been sorta sunken in. does this mean that the mealies are eating them and moving around them? are you supposed to see visible signs of being eaten?

all of my mealies are under the surface, i assume that this is normal..will they come to teh surface to pupate though? if not how will i see them to remove them?

[RaVeNo888o]

UPDATE**
ive got about 4 pupae's and one is already a beetle, just finishing development, he cant walk yet. I guess i gotta get my other bin ready now.

[Pixie]

I too have 2 containers for my mealworm colonies. I found that if they were all in one once the colony got going, the mealworms would eat the pupae and I wouldn't get beetles to start up another colony.

I set up one colony in a rubbermaid on rolled oats, oat bran, wheat germ, powdered milk, vitamins and other tidbits I can throw in. I then let it go for a few weeks. In 2-3 weeks I can usually start seeing tiny worms in the substrate. The beetles don't live long enough to have them start the second colony so I have a few set aside that I leave grow and pupate. Those are thrown into the second bin to start off the second colony.

Whenever I find a pupated mealworm, I throw it in the second bin. By the time my first colony is depleted, my second is going strong and I use the first bin like the second and start another colony going.

Gives me more than enough mealies for my pets!

Good luck,
Pixie