Questions about superworms

[bluesoda025]

Alright, I've decided to give supers a try as the staple feeders for my dragon, since I hate smelly crickets, and silkworms are a pain to look after (and to keep alive!). I only have one dragon, and I don't plan on breeding the superworms (at least, not at the moment), so what I'm wondering is, what's a good number of superworms to order? I was thinking of ordering 200-250 to start off with, but I'm not sure how long that would last.. a few months, maybe? Do superworms even live that long?

Also, I know you need some kind of "bedding/food" for them, which sounds like it's usually oatmeal. How much of that do I need to put in there? And do I need to change the bedding or can I just allow each shipment of superworms to stay on the same bedding til the worms are all gone/eaten? I just can't imagine how I would even change the bedding to begin with, what with them all in there crawling around and such, especially since superworms really creep me out. :lol:

 

[fresnowitte]

You will get a much better deal the more you buy. I'd start with 500 to 1000 as long as you keep them fed and hydrated with a bran substrate they can live about a year to 18 months before they will begin to morph on their own even if your not trying to get them to. You want to have your substrate about 4" deep and you will need to clean it out periodically of the poop and old veggies.

If you use the bran substrate you can use a colander/strainer with large holes to strain the worms out of the substrate. Place them in another container...empty the worm bin and clean...replace with fresh bran and return worms to the bin. :wink:

 

[bluesoda025]

Hm.. when I clean the bins, do I have to disinfect them or anything? I mean, do superworms carry any parasites or anything like that? I usually just use dish detergent when I clean my feeder bins.
And how often should the bins be cleaned out? I can be a bit lazy when it comes to cleaning, so hopefully every 1-2 months suffices.
Another thing I was wondering.. do superworms smell at all? If they do, hopefully not as horrid as crickets...

 

[fresnowitte]

You can just rinse it out with hot water and dry it.
I'd say I have to clean mine out and change substrate about every month or so...don't feel bad I'm a bit lazy myself. When you see alot of dusty residue in the bottom of your bin this is the poop so you want to keep that at a minimal. Sometimes you can get away with just sifting it and reusing the substrate once you sifted the poop out. BTW...if you have a bulk food section in one of you local grocery stores often the bran is much much cheaper there. I have WinCo foods so I pay about .39 a pound for the bran.

Superworms have a very slight smell but I wouldn't say that it's an odor like with crickets...btw crickets are about the worse smelling of them all.

I'm not sure about the parasite question, but again crickets are the worse for that too.