[macksnowgecko]

Can anyone tell me how they breed mealworms with pics it would be appreciated

[gbhil]

No pics, but they aren't really needed.

You need the following:
Two 6 quart rubbermaid shoeboxes.
One butter dish, cool whip tub, etc. Anything to store pupae in.
One large package of Rolled Oats.
100 mealworms
A supply of carrots.

Fill one of the shoeboxes half way with rolled oats. Place your mealworms and a chunk of carrot in. Park it somewhere at least 70 degrees F. Check every other day to see if the carrot has molded, as well as for pupae. Replace carrot when molded. Any pupae you find go into the butter dish. Check the butter dish every day to see if the pupae have molted into beetles.

Fill the other shoebox about 2" deep with rolled oats, and a chunk of carrot. When you get beetles, put them in this shoebox. Check the carrot every other day for mold, just like above. Keep them at least 70F.

After you get a number of beetles (10 or so):

Every two weeks remove the beetles and carrot, and pour the oats from the beetle shoebox into the original shoebox the mealworms grew up in. It will be full of eggs and/or larvae. Put 2" of fresh oats back in the beetle shoebox, return the beetles and their carrot.

The first cycle takes the longest, and the most patience. After that, you have a constant trickle of pupae and beetles molting to keep your breeding going.

Mealworms you want to keep for feeding can go in the fridge and won't pupate. Just put them in a cup of sawdust or ground oats, like you find when you buy them. If you don't keep them back and cold, they will pupate faster than you can feed them off, and you'll end up with hundreds of thousands more mealworms than you'll need.


*** Lots of folks use veggies other than carrot. I don't. That tiny bit of carrot in their gut when your herp eats them contains natural color enhancing minerals. Since carrots are just as cheap as potatoes or celery, just use the carrots and save $$ by not having to buy Naturose to brighten the oranges and reds in your animals.

[macksnowgecko]

ok thanks a few questions though how much beetles produce how much meal worms and also how long do the beetles live for

[Supreme Gecko]

Here is an article from my newsletter about breeding mealworms-
Gecko News 1.3

[gbhil]

Originally Posted by macksnowgecko

ok thanks a few questions though how much beetles produce how much meal worms and also how long do the beetles live for

Not 100% sure on numbers, but I'd guess each female beetle can lay well over 100 eggs each week.

I started with 100 mealworms from the local bait shop. Two years later I have four 55 gallon drums and a total of about 50,000 - 150,000 mealworms at any given time, not counting whats in the fridge for sale, which varies from 20,000 to 50,000. I let them breed without pulling any from the colony for the first year. Now I feed quite a few pets as well as use them for fishing and still have more than I'll ever need.

If you simply want to keep them going to feed your own pets, feed heavily direct from the bin and you'll still have enough morph into beetles to keep the colony going. I'd guess 10 beetles will make enough babies to feed a single gecko and still leave enough to make 10 more beetles to do it all over again. But don't worry, mealworms are real easy to sell or trade away if you get too many. Hit up leopard gecko breeders, sugar glider breeders, and finch (bird) breeders with a decent price or trade offer and likely they will take them all.

The healthy beetles live about 4 months. Some will molt out weak or deformed and only live a few weeks. I pull those out when I find them.

[macksnowgecko]

Now after you get the first done with it and your colony is going steadily do you still need to do that with the pupae or just keep them in the drum and they will go on turning into beetles slowly? Also how long when refridgerated do the mealworms stay mealworms, and do the mealworms still grow while they're in the fridge? You'vebeen a lot of help, thanks alot.

[Supreme Gecko]

I just checked a group that was setup at least a year ago that have not been feed for months (I keep them in oatmeal and baby food substrate) and have mealworms of all sizes, beetles, and pupae.

[gbhil]

Originally Posted by macksnowgecko

Now after you get the first done with it and your colony is going steadily do you still need to do that with the pupae or just keep them in the drum and they will go on turning into beetles slowly? Also how long when refridgerated do the mealworms stay mealworms, and do the mealworms still grow while they're in the fridge? You'vebeen a lot of help, thanks alot.

Supreme Gecko is right, you don't have to separate a large healthy colony. You just get a bit less production. Big mealworms will eat pupae, and beetles will eat little mealworms. In my large bins, I still separate what comes to the top, because I'm in there every other day to add carrots. I don't have much luck raising them without some sort of moisture source.

In the fridge, they don't grow much at all, if any. They last about 45 days, then they start to get hard and turn black one by one. If they sit in the fridge a month, I just dump them back into a bin and refill the cup with new ones, then back in the fridge.

You're welcome. I found it's almost as much fun to culture and grow the feeders as it is to keep the geckos, so I'm happy to talk about it and share.

[Riverside Reptiles]

Nice thread. Very good description on how to breed these guys. I'm going to sticky this to the top so newbies can make an easy find of it. Good job and thanks for writing it.

[macksnowgecko]

ok thanks again gbhill Supreme Gecko for answering my last few questions. You helped a lot