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Ok guys I posted on here before about the benefits of eating mealworms etc etc etc. I recently decided to breed mealworms for my Leopard Gecko's and my bearded dragon.
I got tired of paying 7 bucks at petco for 50 mealworms and from what I read online it was easy enough to do for yourself.
So I bought 50 mealworms ( more like 30 in the container from petco ) and started my colony.
SO the benefits would be if you dont want to eat them which you can in fact but if you dont have the stomach you can still raise them to feed birds or reptiles. Rats and sugar gliders also eat them too. One benefit would be that if you had a colony and fed birds daily or weekly you could keep the birds coming back and if you needed to you could kill the birds when they land to eat the mealworms or even attract rats if you needed some quick food. I will tell you this Blue Jays and Robins LOVE mealworms and they are pretty good sized birds.
ALSO CHICKENS REALLY LIKE THE WORMS AND BEETLES, THEY ARE A GREAT SOURCE OF PROTEIN AND IF YOU HAVE A BIG ENOUGH COLONY IT IS A GREAT SOURCE OF FOOD FOR THE CHICKENS WITHOUT ALL THE STEROIDS AND ADDITIVES THAT ARE PUT IN CHICKEN FOOD.
Here is what you need to start your own for eating, feeding birds, feeding reptiles etc etc etc.
Mealworms ( of course )
A plastic container with plenty of ventilation.
Bran Flakes or Corn Meal for bedding which they also eat.
and half a potato or carrot which is where they get they're water.
To start you just put the bran or corn meal in the plastic container and add the mealworms and half a potato or carrot. I also put powdered cricket food and calcium dust with D3 which is more for the reptiles than the worms but it did seem to make them grow faster.
The mealworms will shed they're exoskeleton many time over they're lives and you will see it in the bedding. They pretty much stay hidden under the bedding. After about 2-6 weeks you will see a small alien type thing in the bedding which is a pupa. Put the pupa in another plastic container because the worms will eat it. Check on the colony every couple days and give them a fresh carrot or half potato for water and separate any additional pupa to the pupa container.
In about 2 weeks the pupa becomes a small white beetle which in a couple hours will turn into a black beetle. The beetles can fly but seldom do when they have food and water. They also bite and pretty hard actually so dont play with them. lol
If you have male and female bugs they will of course breed and she will lay the eggs deep into the bedding or sometimes on the potato.
I do not know exact time the eggs take to hatch as you cant see the eggs because they are too small. I generally start seeing TINY worms in about a month from the time the beetles get out of pupation and the worms grow fairly quick if they are kept warm with plenty of potato or carrot for water.
After that initial breeding and birth the colony gets bigger by the day and you will get beetles faster, im pretty sure it is because the pet stores keep the worms in the fridge which drastically slows down the worms growth and puts them in a kind of hibernation.
At any time if you are over run by worms and you want to slow the colony just put them in the fridge and it will slow them down.
I will try to get some pictures for you guys tonight of my colony and if you have any questions let me know.
Here is a picture of the Mealworms ( Darken Beetle ) life cycle
I got tired of paying 7 bucks at petco for 50 mealworms and from what I read online it was easy enough to do for yourself.
So I bought 50 mealworms ( more like 30 in the container from petco ) and started my colony.
SO the benefits would be if you dont want to eat them which you can in fact but if you dont have the stomach you can still raise them to feed birds or reptiles. Rats and sugar gliders also eat them too. One benefit would be that if you had a colony and fed birds daily or weekly you could keep the birds coming back and if you needed to you could kill the birds when they land to eat the mealworms or even attract rats if you needed some quick food. I will tell you this Blue Jays and Robins LOVE mealworms and they are pretty good sized birds.
ALSO CHICKENS REALLY LIKE THE WORMS AND BEETLES, THEY ARE A GREAT SOURCE OF PROTEIN AND IF YOU HAVE A BIG ENOUGH COLONY IT IS A GREAT SOURCE OF FOOD FOR THE CHICKENS WITHOUT ALL THE STEROIDS AND ADDITIVES THAT ARE PUT IN CHICKEN FOOD.
Here is what you need to start your own for eating, feeding birds, feeding reptiles etc etc etc.
Mealworms ( of course )
A plastic container with plenty of ventilation.
Bran Flakes or Corn Meal for bedding which they also eat.
and half a potato or carrot which is where they get they're water.
To start you just put the bran or corn meal in the plastic container and add the mealworms and half a potato or carrot. I also put powdered cricket food and calcium dust with D3 which is more for the reptiles than the worms but it did seem to make them grow faster.
The mealworms will shed they're exoskeleton many time over they're lives and you will see it in the bedding. They pretty much stay hidden under the bedding. After about 2-6 weeks you will see a small alien type thing in the bedding which is a pupa. Put the pupa in another plastic container because the worms will eat it. Check on the colony every couple days and give them a fresh carrot or half potato for water and separate any additional pupa to the pupa container.
In about 2 weeks the pupa becomes a small white beetle which in a couple hours will turn into a black beetle. The beetles can fly but seldom do when they have food and water. They also bite and pretty hard actually so dont play with them. lol
If you have male and female bugs they will of course breed and she will lay the eggs deep into the bedding or sometimes on the potato.
I do not know exact time the eggs take to hatch as you cant see the eggs because they are too small. I generally start seeing TINY worms in about a month from the time the beetles get out of pupation and the worms grow fairly quick if they are kept warm with plenty of potato or carrot for water.
After that initial breeding and birth the colony gets bigger by the day and you will get beetles faster, im pretty sure it is because the pet stores keep the worms in the fridge which drastically slows down the worms growth and puts them in a kind of hibernation.
At any time if you are over run by worms and you want to slow the colony just put them in the fridge and it will slow them down.
I will try to get some pictures for you guys tonight of my colony and if you have any questions let me know.
Here is a picture of the Mealworms ( Darken Beetle ) life cycle
