Questions on Breeding Mealworms!!

[Dhsquire]

Hey guys,
My fiance and I recently ordered 10k mealworms and thought we'd try our hand in breeding them. I think I basically have the idea down, but I had a few questions..

I have them in a three drawer stackable storage type thing from wal mart, they're on wheat bran.. we keep slices of potato, butternut squash, carrots, etc. in there for moisture and added nutrition, and they're in our reptile room so it's at a constant 80-85 degrees at all times.

we have a drawer for the meal worms, one for the pupae, and one for the beetles...

my question is, once the pupae turn into beetles, how long before they lay eggs? and how will I know?? I read that the eggs are only a milimeter in length and are very hard to see.. but I also read that you're supposed to remove the beetles once they've laid to prevent them from eating their eggs.. so any help at all on this subject would be awesome!

and please let me know if I'm doing something wrong so far.. I would LOVE to not have to buy feeders or deal with crickets anymore...

my dubias are finally taking off.. so I'm hoping the mealies will do the same

Thanks a bunch!
Lauren

 

[Venom508]

do you plan on feeding them to ur bd?

i really don't recommend that because they are really hard for bds to digest because of the hard chitin shell and can cause impaction.
sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

[Dhsquire]

no no, my fiance breeds leopard geckos.. these are mainly for them.

I breed the dubias for the beardies

 

[Venom508]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lol
Phew

 

[moose9]

Everything your doing sounds about right. I started my colony of mealworms 6 months back with just 50 worms. I now have probably close to or more than what you ordered. I currently have 2 shoebox size containers and 1 double shoebox size.

You can move the beetles if you want, but not necessary. I haven't had an issue with egg eating. The worms will pupate, hatch into beetles, breed, lay there eggs in the bran and start the process all over all over. The eating of the eggs is more so with superworms. There veracious.

You may need more containers just to keep from over crowding. When your bran looks like sand, its time to replace or add more bran. You should be able to see movement in the bran after about a month if you have babies. About the size of a pinhead cricket, very small. If you want to see them more clearly, add a slice of potato after a month of beetles, wait a couple days and pickup the slice of potato. You should be able to see them.

 

[Twobeardieguy]

Bump

 

[Dhsquire]

oh cool! thanks for the help...

gah I cant imagine how many I'll have in 6 months if I'm starting out with 10,000... :shock:

 

[SushiDragons]

LOL, A LOT. I've just started breeding mealies myself. I have no idea why I waited so long, it's so much fun. I have the same set up you do with the three drawers. I separate out the pupae and put the beetles in their own bin. I take them out when they die, I've had no problems with beetles eating eggs. Or, if they do, it's not enough that it makes a difference!

 

[Ryan Maguire]

I started breeding mealies too recently just for the fun of it! I just found babies last night -- they are so tiny all I can see is the bran moving ever so slightly with my bad eyes. I am estatic however!

 

[Twobeardieguy]

Ive been breeding for some time now cause the sugar gliders love them but I have to many!! So I started to sell them to the local pet shops!! Good luck!!

 

[hammerhead]

Breading them is easy. You'll know when the eggs hatch when the corn meal etc starts moving. I just started beeding silkworms, they started to cocoon today. My kids can't stop watching them