# Breeding mealworms thread?



## Mr.James (Mar 6, 2009)

Hi everyone,

Just seeking some advice and information as to how to go about breeding mealworms. Anyone have any experience with these?

...........................................?


Which are better as a source of food, but not a main source I know because they apparently are fatty yeah? Mealworms, silk worms, earthworms.. or any other worms or insect other than woodies and crickets?


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## Mr.James (Mar 6, 2009)

bump


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## Mr.James (Mar 6, 2009)

Anyone?


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## Mr.James (Mar 8, 2009)

bump!


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## coz666 (Mar 8, 2009)

http://www.cannibalsall.com/mealworms.html
hope this helps you

i never had an obese reptile. cant comment.


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## Mr.James (Mar 8, 2009)

thanks coz

big help! I've never had a obese reptile either. lol. & I wasnt just thinking about reptiles if i can breed them I may feed them to my baby chooks too.


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## cracksinthepitch (Mar 8, 2009)

My set up is quite different to the link, i was instructed by an old birdo who breeds her own for her finches. I have one large tub set up like a woody enclosure(mesh lid for air) then i put in a baking tray then layers of washed hessian bags. in each layer i put oatmeal and carrot for feed.Occasionally i mist the top layer just to add a bit of moisture. It was interesting to read about the separation to stop the pupae from being eaten, i dont do this at present but i may if i lose a few. Seems to be working well at present but you need to replace the carrot quite regularly to keep the moisture up and they are more active(breeding etc )in the warmer months.


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## cracksinthepitch (Mar 8, 2009)

my understanding of the feeding issue of mealworms is that lizards cannot breakdown large amounts of exosceleton(its called something else but i cant remember) and it sits in there guts and can cause impaction, so best to give them a varied diet and mealies only once a week.


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## Mr.James (Mar 8, 2009)

will try that out!


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## australia09 (Mar 9, 2009)

ok this is my set up now and most simple set up. fill 1/3 of an ice cream container (4L) with rolled oats or plain oats, ( i find rolled are cheaper) then put in 2 toilet roll tubes and half an egg carton (the bottom as its got more grip area) then place beetles in. if you dont have beetles then ill sell them to you just me me if you want.

but if your starting with just mealworms just fill an ice cream container 1 third with oats, put a slice of potato and put in your mealworms. i find 500-650 worms work best in a ice cream container. once they pupa after a while may be a month or so put them into a chinese container and then they will lay their and wiggle occasionally for 1-2 weeks then put them into your beetle set up.

at all times make sure you have moisture in the containers except the pupa. mealworms and beetles dont drink water so they get the moisture from the potato slice. replace the potato every 3-4 days. good luck.


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## australia09 (Mar 9, 2009)

when i mean put them into your beetle set up make sure they are beetles at the stage as beetles occasionally do cannobalise.


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## cracksinthepitch (Mar 13, 2009)

Well idecided to remove all the pupae from my hessian bag set up and put them in a cricket box, that night heaps of them are now beetles starting as a yellowy colour then browning after a day and getting darker after that. i had the beetles separate from the mealworms but ive decided to have them together and to supply lots of food for both to eliminate any cannibal issues. These beetles appear to be incredibly unco-ordinated and are constantly stuck on their backs, verry funny to watch late at night while im looking for pupae. They're more work than woodies but so much easier to catch.


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## beckyreptilegirl (Mar 13, 2009)

hi 

i breed them a very easy way 
get a container and add a 100 g tub of meal worms add some bran flakes or something like that 
then wait until the mealworms pupae and then turn into beetles. when they have turned into beatles you can either remove them from the worms and pupae or keep them in the container. once they have turned into beetles add a tomarto or potato or any thing like that for them to eat. Soon you will find on the bottom of the tub tiny baby mealworms. note: check the potato or tomato for baby meal worms before removing as they somtimes get layed in the food

hope this helps 

 beckyreptilegirl


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## Parko (Mar 13, 2009)

Just a plastic tub with no lid, use unprocessed bran about 10cms deep and throw a carrot in a cpl times a week. Simple as that. I keep them on the hot water system to keep them breeding all year round, i dont mess around with seperating beetles or anything and have kept them going from the one initial purchase 7 years ago, so it works for me. I've never had troubles with impacted reptiles or frogs from mealies.


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## Dragoness (Mar 19, 2009)

I do pretty much the same. Started with a tub of 100g mealworms, half filled a 4 litre icecream container with bran and then put cotton wool on top. The worms turned into beetles, laid eggs in the cotton wool and before I knew it I had tons of mealworms. I then fed the beetles to my dragon (which he LOVED) and am now waiting for this next lot to turn into beetles to do it all over again. I dont feed my boy alot of worms, maybe only a few once or twice a week, but once they are beetles Im guessing they can be fed as much as they like as they dont have the exoskeleton.

Cheers


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## Chris1 (Mar 19, 2009)

Parko said:


> Just a plastic tub with no lid, use unprocessed bran about 10cms deep and throw a carrot in a cpl times a week. Simple as that. I keep them on the hot water system to keep them breeding all year round, i dont mess around with seperating beetles or anything and have kept them going from the one initial purchase 7 years ago, so it works for me. I've never had troubles with impacted reptiles or frogs from mealies.




yep, same thing, except i keep them on the snake tank above the light fro heat.


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## melgalea (Mar 19, 2009)

its funny to watch the whole process on the meal worm to beetle thing. kinda cute. i held back heaps of mealies just to see the whole process work. and its funny watching baby beardies eat the beetles. all those legs on teh beetles freak em out. lol.


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## dailyskin (Mar 19, 2009)

HUH?!?!? Baby beardies can eat the beetles of mealworms?? Even though they are super crunchy? Please someone let me know, I have been spending hours painstakingly going through my woodies with tweezers to pick out the beetles!!


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## Chris1 (Mar 19, 2009)

i wouldnt feed the beetles to the beardies, esp not babies.

the inbetween 'alien' looking stage is ok tho,...


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## dailyskin (Mar 19, 2009)

Hmm the ones I find look like black ladybugs??


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## Chris1 (Mar 19, 2009)

theyre from teh tiny mealworms in the roach bins?

theyre probaby ok being so tiny, but if its not necessary why risk it,..


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## shlanger (Mar 19, 2009)

*Mealworms, my way!*

In stead of using bran, pollard or rolled oats, I used to grow mine in fine ground wholemeal flour 3-4 inches deep. ( Not sure about self raising, the mind boggles!) I would then get some clean hessian and fold it 2,3 or 4 times and place it on top of the layer of flour. On top of this I regularly placed and replaced slices of apple, potato or banana skins
It's very important to keep this moisture away from the flour as it will cause mould to grow. Thus, I never used tomatoe, to wet and sloppy. The idea being the mealworms would live in, and eat the flour. When they wanted moisture, they would burrow up through the hessian to the apple/potatoe. When I wanted to harvest some I would lift up the folds of hessian and pick out the ones I wanted, the white ones that had recently shed their skins for lizards The yellow one's I fed to my larger fish, they had no trouble digesting and dealing with the skin, (chitin). Now, the beauty of using flour was that when I wanted a lot I would scoop out a tin full of the flour medium, and sieve it through flywire, straight back into the container and replace the hessian etc. Try doing this with bran or oats! What I had left in the flywire sieve was pretty much mealworms and their shed skins, which could be blown away, like you would blow out birthday candles! 
A word of warning, your mealworm colony(s) need to be in a container with a tight fitting lid,
(clip on?), large ice-cream containers are ideal, with a lage hole cut in the lid and covered (glued/melted on?) with flywire. This provides ventilation and also prevents the access of a little triangular shaped, brown and white moth, appropriately called 'the flour moth'! If these little mongrels get into your colony and lay eggs, the resultant larvae a little white grub with a black head, burrow tunnels through the medium, be it oats bran or whatever. These tunnels they line with silk, akin to spider silk. Pretty soon your whole colony will be riddled with a lot of these and their 'silk' tunnels that stuff it all up and you will be breeding more of them than mealworms. When this happpens you have to throw the whole lot out and start again. *Believe me, this has happened to me and others!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
Trust you mealworm growers find this info useful!
Ciao,
Dale G.


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## dailyskin (Mar 19, 2009)

Yep from the woodies bins...

Ok if they're not great, I'll keep picking them out... I sit in front of the telly with a pair of tweezers, it takes AGES but it's strangely satisfying LOL I squish them all with the tweezers!


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## Chris1 (Mar 19, 2009)

haha, htats so funny,..theraputic beetle squishing,..lol!


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## shlanger (Mar 19, 2009)

I've always understood that 'beardies' need crunchie beetles to help keep their teeth clean and stop peridontal disease! (infected jaws)


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## Chris1 (Mar 19, 2009)

crunchy veges (carrots/green beans) also do a good job on their teeth.

once their older anything goes, (mine nab beetles outside all the time with no ill effects)
..but not with bubs/juvies,....


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## Parko (Mar 19, 2009)

Chris1 said:


> yep, same thing, except i keep them on the snake tank above the light fro heat.


I guess that would also be acceptable. I give endorsement for your method. Lol


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## Dragoness (Mar 20, 2009)

You scared me Chris, my boy loves the beetles, but he is over 2 years old now, so I guess its fine for him to eat them! (considering he was eating a heap of them there for awhile!) phew!

Cheers


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## melgalea (Mar 22, 2009)

my young ones eat the beetles on occasion, i really dont feel there is anything wrong with that.


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## dailyskin (Mar 24, 2009)

*bangs head against a wall*

After spending an hour picking out the beetles and sticking them in a seperate container, my husband wandered into the kitchen and said, "oh, you must have left some bugs in the wrong container, don't worry, I fed them all to her"

MORON! Lol never mind, she ate about 10 of them and is fine, has pooped and everything.


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