Breeding Superworms

[TerryG]

I've had my Beardie, Shacklynn, for about 4 months. I've tried feeding her a few different things, mealworms (which she had been fed on in the pet store), crickets, black soldier fly larvae, superworms, collard greens, carrots, butternut squash, yellow squash, regular and "gourmet" prepared bearded dragon diets and so far all she really seems to like are the superworms. She'll try anything I offer her in my hand at least once, but she doesn't eat much of anything except the superworms. She's 14.5" long now, but I've read that they aren't really a safe food to eat until she gets to be 15-18" long. I haven't had any problems with impaction so far, but I have some crickets and "gourmet beside diet" to feed her in the meantime (the mix I have has dried worms and blueberries in it in addition to vegetable pellets and she mostly just picks out the worms and berries and ignores the other stuff) At the rate she's growing that will be pretty soon so I'm thinking of starting to breed my own superworms for her to eat.

I read the post on breeding supers that h0ndap0w3r posted on this forum several years ago and watched a few videos on YouTube about breeding superworms and it seems relatively simple. I was wondering if anyone is currently breeding superworms and can offer me some advice.

I'm planning on using "old fashioned oats" (not quick oats) as substrate and keeping them in a three drawer plastic container: beetles and eggs, worms that are growing, worms that I'm fattening up for metamorphosis. And then a separate container for keeping the ready to eat worms for Shacklynn.

I was thinking of using fishing tackle box organizers to separate the worms for transformation from larvae to pupa.

I've read that some people feed the beetles to their dragons. Is this safe and healthy? It seems like a good way to get rid of the beetles so I only have to keep them until there is a fresh batch of adult beetles and won't have to worry about having a bunch of dead beetles in the end. Less waste!...but if they don't provide much nutrience, than I wouldn't want to feed them to her.

Do the adult beetles fly?

Do the superworms have to be a certain age before they can pupate successfully? Or just 2" long?

How many beetles to I need to start with for a self sustaining breeding community? I'm buying 2,000 and plan to pick out the heartiest 100 to set aside for pupation and breeding. Will that be enough? Will I have to occasionally buy small batches of new superworms to prevent inbreeding? How often will I need to do that?

The whole process seems long, but really simple with barely any effort beyond waiting and providing moisture for the worms. Sorry I have so many questions, I don't want to have overlooked something. It just seems so low maintenance.

 

[Tehachopi]

My beardie Dovakhiin loves his supers to the point he may turn down mealworms and even wax worms. I've learned from a few things from a small amount of breeding. Firstly my little operation is on a small scale since I only have one dragon. I sorta broke the rule about length and eating the worms. He tried them at about 11" and he loved them so much he wouldn't let me stop giving them! He has had few if any impactions but there were a few times he went a day without his business but he would always do it the next day so alll is well.

So far in my experience it has been simple. My worms on general live in one of those cricket keepers minus the tubes but can live in tons of places. My succestion is either a small fish tank or literally just about any smooth plastic bin/tub/etc. When it comes time to pupate some pick out the largest worms and separate them. Most people go with simple film cases, one per worm. I myself have a bead case I drilled holes in for ventilation and have one worm per segment. My mistake that I found out was you should NOT feed or water the worms in isolation.

For bedding/food I have a commercial bedding bought on Amazon but have heard the oats are fine if not possibly better but depending on the size of the oats you should ground them almost to a dust like the bedding they come in from pet stores. Other than that feeding and watering is similar to crickets.

As for the beetles housing and feeding is pretty much the same as the worms but it is a good idea to give them a piece of egg crate so they gather there rather than burrow through the bedding, find eggs and eat them or young worms. I wouldn't feed the beetles to your dragon due to the harder exoskeleton. Often a dragon may end up with parts of the shell in his poop. A waste to throw out dead beetles but I'd rather not risk it. Also I don't believe they fly. The few I have gotten by accident have not made any effort to though I haven't exactly searched for wings XD.

Most of the time worms can take 5 months to grow that full 2" so like I stated before picking the largest of your shipment will be your best bet and likely you'll have many big ones. I'm not entirely sure how many you want to start with so I'll let someone else speak for that but inbreeding I have not tried to deal with yet. I suppose to prevent that you can always separate adults from worms and when they pupate have a second bin for the other adults but you can't really keep siblings from breeding with each other unless you locate and separate each individual egg and separate them but who has the time! Plus I'm not sure you can tell who laid which eggs.

I found this article had a lot of great information. I learned a lot from it!
http://www.geckotime.com/how-to-breed-superworms/
Good luck with your worms!

Edit: also a quick search on Google says the adult beetles only live about 4-5 months so about every 3-4 months you may want to pupate more so not to run out of beetles.

 

[MWMaggot]

My story is about who's the same as yours. I wanted to breed super worms so I did YouTube research and I read a few things online and I started with I believe a dozen super worms. That was almost a year Ago and were going pretty good. Although we only have one dragon and a turtle. I used store-bought regular oatmeal for my bedding I bought Fluker's cricket calcium online from Amazon for like four bucks and I use potato slices for the adults and I am switching over The worms,right now to zoo med feeder gel cubes and that's working pretty well. I had a problem with mites using the fresh veggies so I wanted to eliminate that problem. immediately I ordered the zoomed cubes. The beetles do not fly and can't climb the plastic.
I guess it would depend on how much your dragon eats to determine how often do you need to pupate beetles. What takes the longest is growing from egg to a large worm, large enough for me anyways, to feed to my Dragon. You'll have to wait a few months until the worms are large enough to turn into beetles . As soon as they are large enough I pull out five or six and isolate them right away and then just keep rolling like that.
To pupate them I use a craft organizer bought at the dollar store. They do like it dark and warm. I usually put them on a shelf in my closet when I morph them because it's warm in there and dark and I don't really mess around in the closet that much, and that helps, I think