Photos of My Feeders and Colonies

[cat_named_noodles]

I was cleaning cages and feeder containers, and doing general maintenance of all my critters today, when I decided to take pics of my feeders and colonies.
First is a pic of my T. molitor pupae. The darker one at the top are no good and will not turn into beetles. On the upper right of the dish is a newly emerged beetle (its exoskeleton has yet to harden, hence the blonde color.

Here's a close-up of the new beetle.

These are my mealworm colonies. The one on the left is for beetles and pupae, the one on the right has over 700 mealworms living in it.

Here's various stages of the mealworm life cycle. On the far right is a 1/4" mealworm. Next to it is a mealworm two sheds away from pupating. In the middle is a small freshly shed mealworm, appearing white in color. On the far left is a pupa, and to its right a mealworm in the dark phase before pupating.

This is a pic of my D. hydei colony. It's has every stage of the fly's life cycle present. You can see several sizes of larvae, new and old pupae, and adults.

This is my B. lateralis roach colony. I currently have about 50-60 females and nymphs, so they aren't producing young at the moment. (Any body want to send me some males?) lol. With the egg crates on and off (before cleaning).

Here's all of them:

Two different sized nymphs and a sub-adult female (the blond one has just molted):

Full-grown female:

About 950 1/4"-1/2" crickets:

 

[missinasworld]

darn i wish ****roches were legal in FL 2 of my leos came from a breeder who fed roaches and they really miss those meaty little meals..plus my crickets STINK and make to much NOISE.

missina

 

[rhachic]

nice collection of food you got there! I'm doing ok with my mealworms but messed up by letting them get humid one day. A bunch died but I belive I have enough that pupated into beetles to be ok and keep them going. Are lots of female roaches a common issue? I am keeping Dubias, and so far all the adults are female! I started with 50 nymphs and about 1/2 are adult now...hope i start seeing some wings in there soon!

 

[Jan Grathwohl]

Nice - but are you sure you don't have males among your lateralis? It seems to be a colony of mostly young animals - i don't see any adult females or males among them actually. My adult females are VERY dark and much larger than the ones you call females - and the males offcourse look totally different - but only after their last shed.

It is my experience that you need high temperatures if you want to have adult males (28-30 degress celcius) - at low temperatures i rarely get any males in my boxe of lateralis.

 

[hyposhawn]

Amazing! :0

 

[cat_named_noodles]

Thanks for all the comments.
Mealworms don't do well w/too much moisture, as you know. But they do appreciate some (I put water cystals in a shallow dish, and always see some mealies on the crystals). And it only takes a few beetles to start over, don't feed from the new colony for a while of course. I currently have about 15-20 beetles and 60 pupae (not to mention hundreds of mealies).
At the moment my hydei colony is going nuts! I probably have close to 1,000 flies in there (I need to get more colonies started!).
For the lateralis, maybe I will get males yet, who knows. The ones I call femals aren't getting much bigger, and they are pretty dark, nearly black, so I'm pretty sure they're females. But true, most do seem to be nymphs. I think I may be ordering more soon to "refresh" what's been eaten. lol.
And the crickets-who now have a screened top, are growing bigger, but are also dropping in quantity, hehe.

 

[hyposhawn]

Nice job of breeding those things!

 

[cat_named_noodles]

Thanks

 

[hyposhawn]

Finally, one of my Meal worms turned into a beetle. How do you tell male and female?

 

[cat_named_noodles]

The only way to sex the beetles is with a microscope-OR if you see the breeding, the one on top is the male, one on bottom female. Congrats on your first beetle! I now have about 50 beetles and 30 pupae.

 

[hyposhawn]

Cool. Is their is a specific care.

 

[cat_named_noodles]

Set up is pretty much the same for beetles: 1.5"-2" wheat bran substrate, shallow container (i.e. Gatorade cap) with water crystals, slices of sweet potato (or other veggie/fruit:carrots, potato, apples, broccoli, etc.-replaced often). The major difference is you must provide some sort of protein as your colony is establishing, to prevent cannibalism. I make my own "Feeder Chow" as I call it, but you can use any commercial cricket or roach feed, or dry dog or cat food. My feeder chow is a mix of dog food, cat food, alfalfa, nutritional yeast, bee pollen, and calcium and vitamin powders. All my crickets, roaches, and meal worms love it.
Also, every 2-3 weeks you want to remove the beetles from the bran (which will be full of eggs) and set them up in a new container. In a few weeks you will be able to see tiny mealworms crawling through the bran when disturbed. At that point, start adding water crystals and veggies.

 

[cat_named_noodles]

Got a male roach over the weekend!!! Here he is and a nymph (male is chowing down on my feeder chow):

 

[hyposhawn]

cool, i have 7 mealworm beatles!