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RAISE YOUR OWN MEALWORMS
Post by admin on Nov 27, 2005, 6:56pm



Breeding and caring for mealworms

http://www.drgecko.com/mealworms/breeding.htm

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/worm.htm

http://www.nyworms.com/mealworms.htm

NOTE:

Check out the last site NY meal worms, he has some decent pricing and good information on keeping and breeding mealworms.

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Re: RAISE YOUR OWN MEALWORMS
Post by tenorgohdess on Sept 8, 2008, 5:10pm

Howdy all!!! I just got a chance to post (this week officially we are changing back to 12hr days yay!!! I will have a life again! lol!) so I thought I'd share. I will post pictures and details once my batteries charge on the camera. hehe

I now have my own mealworm colony. The thing is, when I last wrote I was attempting this, I had pupas turning into beatles and I STILL have the adult beatles. No they did not die after a couple or even a few weeks. I have TONS of tiny baby mealworms and they are growing up fast. I'll be sorting more out still as more hatched so I'll have the opportunity to shoot some fantastic pictures sometime this week and share exactly what I did for anyone else wanting to raise their own.
I'd love to raise my own phoenix worms but don't think Vic would be too thrilled about my raising adult flies in the house. haha

Will post more soon!!! yay!

Hugs,

Amanda

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Re: RAISE YOUR OWN MEALWORMS
Post by tenorgohdess on Sept 12, 2008, 8:09pm

Firstly, the fishpondinfo page is VERY helpful and she has pictures of every stage.

Here's my info. Pretty much the same as hers but I don't have the details on timing of stages, etc.

Breeding Mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) and Superworms (Zophobas morio)

I kept seeing pupae show up in my worm bins when I'd buy a good amount of them to keep my bearded dragons happy so I decided to try my hand at breeding them. The information I found on the web said it'd take a week or two to see pupae and then seems to follow these intervals to reach the beetle stage, egg-laying stage and hatch dates. However, I found my results to be drastically different. For one thing, I've had these same beetles for over 2 months (going on three now) and they are still breeding (hence the picture below shot a couple days ago) so that's promising for would-be breeders!
So just so everyone knows, mealworms are the pupae form of the darkling beetle (this includes all sizes you see at stores which try to make them appear as different things...they are the same worm, just different sizes). The Superworms (the ones that pinch you...ouch) are the pupae form of the Morio beetle. The supers have less chitin than mealies making them easier to digest and thusly have a higher nutritional value. Ready to get started?

First off, you can keep your worms in oat bran (if you can find it) but once it turns to dust it should be clean immediately. You should offer foods you want to go into your bearded dragons and other lizards, not just bran. That's not exactly packing them with nutrition. So, I basically make my varied salads for my beardies (rotating different greens and veggies so they aren't just on a handful of items all the time) and I offer left over/extra pieces of each component of the salads to the worms (or just cut extra if none is left over from what I took out of the fridge). This gives your worms all the moisture they need so no need for the gooey gels or soaked obstructions/pads unless you want to deal with those. I personally found it annoying to deal with and lost more bedding from the gels soaking into those than providing moisture but, it all works just fine.

So basically what I did was this:

1.Housing: I use the Sterilite pull out drawers as they offer plenty of ventilation and make for easy cleanup and sterilization when needed.
2.Bedding: I use the Eco-Earth stuff as it stays lightly moist and doesn't mold unless food joins that moisture...hence the need for a quick switch of fresh foods daily). I do not spray the bedding. I merely took the brick of Eco-Earth and soaked it in water to break it up and squeezed water from it so it was not drenched and sprinkled it in the bins. Again use what you like, you can use Oat Bran, Cypress Mulch, Aspen, whatever you like. Just keep in mind you have to find babies when they hatch and I found Aspen to be difficult in fishing 2ml long babies oftentimes wondering if pieces of aspen were babies (haha!). But, a nice bright LED light can help you with that.
3.Food: I offer again leftovers/extras of each component of my salads offered to the beardies) Since these are fresh veggies and greens, it provides daily moisture for the worms as well as a food source. I also offer a few pellets from the RepCal Adult Bearded Dragon diet and they turn these to dust in no time (again reason to watch these would be because mold will grow on them with moist bedding).
4.Leave them alone aside from daily maintenance: Not to say you'll stress them but they do get to that pupae stage faster when not disturbed. You'll see your worms laying in a curved around fashion which unfortunately leads many people to believe their worms aren't doing good or dead and they get rid of them. This is a sign of the upcoming pupae stage. The will curl like this and in a couple/few days you'll find them as a pupae.
5.Remove the pupae and put them into a separate bin with just bedding. They will not eat (no mouth during this stage, just like a caterpillar in a cocoon, they will not need to eat as they are transforming into the adult stage). Check on them if you like but don't mess with them too much (they'll flip their tails when disturbed). I usually move bedding around gently to see if they are ok but there's really no need as once they turn into adults you'll know immediately as the adults will go to the surface looking for food and shelter. So just look at the bins daily will be sufficient.
6.As soon as you notice adult beetles (known as the Darkling Beetle) get them out and put them into a bin of just adults with the same setup/diet you fed the worms.
7.The adults will mate and lay eggs and in a few weeks you'll have baby worms (which you might not actively see until they are at least 1/2" in length). As soon as I see baby worms I try to fish them out into a nursery of strictly raise up babies of somewhat equal size. As long as they have bedding and food (with moisture in there too) they'll do fine and grow up fast.

I will be keeping better records with these new worms to see just how long each stage takes in order to further help out others who wish to breed their own so they can see how much to start out with in order to obtain their breeding goals. As it stands with my current stock, I haven't bred enough to feed my pair of beardies! So, I'm working to add new worms once my current stock enters the pupae stage (so as not to confuse who's turning at what time).
I will update on these findings as I get them to happen!

My current setup for a worm nursery. The 3 drawers hold all new worms obtained until they reach the pupae stage. The empty blue topped bins (next level down from left to right) will separate mealworm and super pupae, then the bin with a white lid holds my adult morio beetles, the shoebox bin next to that holds my new baby super worms!.

Breeding Morio beetles

Baby supers!!

More pictures!!!

10/10/08: Same super worm clutch, bigger now! Shown with 24" feeder tong tips for size reference.


1cm long super worm! Just found these guys a day ago in this bin (which they are the color of the bedding as you can see...so happy hunting! LOL)



Example of some of the food items offered daily to my beetles and worms. I chop the morning salad for my dragons, then slice a few extra pieces off for the insect colony. I rotate my veggies just like I did for our iguanas so they get maximum nutrition and gut-loading daily.


Behold the mighty pupae drawer. Shortly after shooting this I found 37 more! Looks like a scene from Aliens.

Below are some comparison shots of Morio beetles and the color changes of Darkling beetles:

Morio (left) and Darkling (right)

Newly pupated Darkling beetle (NOTE: very squishy and delicate at this stage...be careful, do not squish when removing from the pupae area!!)

A few hours old (darkling beetle). They turn a rust brown color and the shell is hard.

A day old (darkling beetle). Note black, hard shell.

Once I get this up and running, I will have a nice collection of mealworms, supers and the best earthworms I can find so we get optimal calcium and nutrition for our insect and omnivorous lizards.

Always feel free to email me with any questions!

Hugs,

Amanda Rose
A.R. Exotics

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Re: RAISE YOUR OWN MEALWORMS
Post by admin on Sept 13, 2008, 6:46am

Excellent post Amanda. How do you clean them? Do you change out the bedding? I know they will produce a lot of waste.

bob

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Re: RAISE YOUR OWN MEALWORMS
Post by tenorgohdess on Sept 30, 2008, 12:38am

Now that I'm on 8hr/day shifts...I can visit here more! woot!

First off, I clean them like you would anything, just toss out the old bedding if it starts to look bad or smell (I don't wait for fungus but if it gets that "musky" smell I change it). Daily I make my rounds picking out dead bodies, old food and shed skins to make sure it doesn't smell.
I've moved back to using a bit of the eco earth and aspen mixture because Vic doesn't like the woody smell of the eco earth (it does have kind of a dark woody smell unlike the lighter, cleaner scent of aspen by itself).
It's totally different for the adults (beetles). Throwing out bedding usually means you are throwing out eggs! I do rotate their bedding once a week using my tongs just to make sure air gets in there and it doesn't get stale-smelling.

Quick update: I finally have plenty of pupae of giant mealworms so very soon I'll have adult darkling beetles and a nice colony of giants going! The super worm babies I've been raising are getting close to adult size and fiesty as all heck. My adult Morio beetles are still going strong, alive and breeding.
I'll snap some more pictures of everything soon so you can see what the pupae look like, how I have them laid out, etc.
I had to move all my giant mealworm pupae to the top drawer in that sterilite system as a couple days ago I found 21 pupae, 12 the next and 14 today! So that full drawer is needed to prevent overcrowding and stress on the pupae.

More to come!!! As always, if anyone has any questions feel free to post here or email me asking!

Hugs!

Amanda

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Re: RAISE YOUR OWN MEALWORMS
Post by inny on Oct 10, 2008, 4:47pm

Very Informative stuff guys, nice pics too Goddess! A little different to how we do it here but basically the same. Very useful, Well done thanks for the info!

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