I bought a good amount of Superworms, the BD's love them. But they smell awful . Even crickets have a bit of an odor. What feeders are easy to start a colony and don't stink to high H#$% ???
Dubias are the least odorous and easiest to breed from what I have heard.I use supers personally and I do not find too much odor with them.How do you keep them?I keep mine in oatmeal that I change out and give them carrots for moisture and I rarely notice an odor.Crickets on the other hand are a HUGE pain and I only have them in the house when I have a baby in the house otherwise they are banned! :wink:
I have them in a big plastic container with oat/bran. There are some egg cartons in for extra roaming room. But they smell awful. How may do you keep at a time and how deep is your oats? How long between oat changes? I use potatoes also, maybe thats why???
I have them in a big plastic container with oat/bran. There are some egg cartons in for extra roaming room. But they smell awful. How may do you keep at a time and how deep is your oats? How long between oat changes? I use potatoes also, maybe thats why???
The ptatoes do make it worse that is why I switched to carrots.I have it about 3-4 inches deep for about 500-750 supers depending.I never used oatbran either I wonder if the oatmeal absorbs a bit better?
Crickets reek. I never noticed until I did a really big order of several thousand and keep them all in one bin. Holy cows, they stink. But even my dubia kind of stink. I don't know if this is because of their diet or what, but there is definitely a smell. They're bugs. I guess, what can you expect, right?
How often do you clean them? Are you talking about removing uneaten food, or actually removing all of the skim/dead bugs/waste? I was always under the impression that was good for the babies to feed on...
Does the bin/container that you have the superworms in get adequate air? When I first started keeping superworms I used a lid on my bin with holes. I found that they were not receiving enough air circulation and it was causing moisture, which made it smell. I now keep the bin lid free and have never had a problem since. Just a thought!
I had the same problem and I found out that the potato was the source of most of the smell. I change the potato diligently every day, and the smell has gone down significantly. I changed the oatmeal two weeks ago, but the potato was definitely the culprit!
I also have silkworms, and they too stink! In fact, it's their food that smells, I got the already prepared chow from the supplier.
But my dubia colony doesn't smell, or even smells nice, because I feed them lots of orange wedges!For minimum smell, I would recommend dubias, or butterworms since they're in the fridge!
In my opinion all bugs stink which ever way you turn its just their "nature." That being said I think the least odor producing insect is superworms, If you have a plastic lid with holes above their enclosure they can stink. I house 80 at a time (keeps my adult beardie good for two weeks) and they don't smell too bad.
I think the smaller crickets don't stink NEARLY as much as the large ones! I have a tub of around 900 large crickets and MY GOD they stink! They are also noisy and I keep thinking there are some loose in the house! Now 1/2 and smaller don't seem to stink nearly as much and usually only start when it's time to clean their bin. The large ones seem to stink all the time!