How to gutload worms?

How do you gutload mealworms (and waxworms, on the rare, rare occasion I use them)? Can I replace the oat substrate they are in with the cricket gutloader food?

Just curious how I can make them more nutritious for my leos.

I put a bunch (I saw a bunch because I buy 500 mealies at a time) of slices of carrots on top of the oatmeal with them, and then the next morning they'll pretty much be gone. Gutloaded and healthy!

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I am reading alot about mealworms for feeders and aw your post. I was considering just starting to attempt to breed wax worm since i use so many a month and they are costly and was wondering if there was a reason on why you only use wax worms on rare occasion? I have two leos that wont eat crickets or meal worms and only eat waxies and wasnt sure if this is a problem.

Also laurahlove, do you use hard fresh carrots or cooked ones so they are softer?

I've heard they are super fatty so I really only use them if I need to fatten up a sickly one. Thanks for the advice!!!

JennLP272 said:

I am reading alot about mealworms for feeders and aw your post. I was considering just starting to attempt to breed wax worm since i use so many a month and they are costly and was wondering if there was a reason on why you only use wax worms on rare occasion? I have two leos that wont eat crickets or meal worms and only eat waxies and wasnt sure if this is a problem.

Also laurahlove, do you use hard fresh carrots or cooked ones so they are softer?

Click to expand...

Waxworms are basically like a candy bar or a giant bubble of bacon fat, delicous- but shouldn't be used as a regular feeder. I use them as an occasional treat for my fatties or if one of geckos stops eating I'll give them one or two to encourage them.

I don't boil the carrots or anything, I just slice them up and they usually end up looking like this, so... [emoji6]



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Yes, waxworms are like feeding your gecko nothing but fat, and are extrememly unhealthy. They should only be given as extremely rare treats to HEALTHY geckos. Sickly geckos need nutrition, and good fats. Not gross fat. Too much fat in their diet can even cause heart and liver problems, which are very deadly as you can imagine.

If you do decide to breed them, Wax worms do not eat carrots or oats or anything like that. You have to grind up dog food, oats, whole grain cereals, and anything else grainy and healthy you can find into a fine dust using a blender or something similar. Then you put it into a pot and add warm melted honey at a 3:1 ratio (3 being the grain dust, and 1 being the warm honey) and stir until it is a thick mixture (more honey may need to be added) Then you line the bottom of a tall jar or bin with wax paper, and spread the mixture over it. Let it set for a day or two in open air. You will need very tiny mesh (such as pantyhose cut to fit over the lid to keep the waxworm moths in). You should then split a piece of cardboard in half so that the wavy, inside part, of the cardboard is facing out. The waxworms will cocoon in this. Then you add your waxworms, and leave them alone until they turn into moths and die. Then you just have to wait for the new waxworms to appear! Its a complicated and messy process that isnt really worth it considering how unhealthy waxworms are for you geckos. But if you have a lot of geckos, or other animals that eat them too, it could be worth considering

As for gut loading mealies, remember that you need variety. While carrots are great, you should also include other vegetables and fruits in order to get the absolute most nutrition that you can. You can use kale, squash, apples and other things to gutload really well also. I will post a link to a gutloading page if Indyana doesnt beat me to it!

Exactly
And that's so crazy about the waxworms and how to breed them!! Never knew that.
Right, and when I said give them to one of my geckos if they stop eating, I didn't mean I give them to an unhealthy geckos. Never do that, because then all they would eat is waxworms.

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I don't know that waxworms can be gutloaded since they don't tend to eat once they're shipped. I've never tried to feed them at least.

My mealworms and roaches get sorted when I get home from work around 6pm and I toss them on some yummy veggies like sweet potatoes, kale, apples, oranges, etc. I feed the geckos around 10pm so the worms have a chance to eat the veggies for a few hours before they are sent to their doom

Additionally, if you're lazy, they do sell commercial gut-loads that are calcium fortified, enriched with vitamins, etc. Currently, I use Fluker's High Calcium cricket diet as a substrate for the mealworms, and then will toss in a small cube of Fluker's calcium fortified cricket quencher a few hours before the gecko's feeding time. They went NUTS for this last time I used it, and most of it got gobbled down with resulting pudgey, engorged worms.

I think it's good to use variety, and will probably alternate their source with more natural options on occasion, but I will say that I enjoy the ease in which a commercial load offers, though they are likely more expensive and might not cover all aspects of nutrition. It's nice to have around though, if ever your grocery store trips have nothing good on sale or that you also want to eat!

Edit: I realized there are some aspects of gut loading that may seem common sense before you actually get to do it. In case you were wondering:

-If you bought say, 100 mealworms, I put them in a designated tupperware container with a substrate (the fortified cricket diet I mentioned, or some oats or corn meal). Make sure the container has holes up top, and then you can put them in. The fridge will make the worms go dormant and seem dead, so they won't be moving much when you retrieve them.

-A few hours before feeding, pull out the number of worms you need for the next meal or two. For my guy who is probably around 8 months to a year old, this is 6-8 large mealworms, or 13-14 if you're pulling out two days worth.

-I put these mealies in a separate dish they can't escape from, and add on whatever gut load you're using.

-Let them feast for a few hours (they warm up in a few minutes and tend to be quite hungry when they wake up!).

-Then come back, see how much they've eaten. If they worms look plump and are moving around and it's been at least an hour or two, they're ready to go. Before feeding, shake a little calcium supplement over the worms, or we drop them one by one into a little calcium bath in a bottle cap before feeding. We hand-feed our gecko each worm, one by one with tweezers to keep track of how much he's eating, but others leave them in a dish that's accessible all the time.

Hope this helps, or isn't insulting if you were already aware of it! I admittedly don't know much about gut loading crickets as I've never done it, but I do know you do a "shake and bake" motion with them in a bag to ensure they're dusted, and I imagine you just have quality gut-load in there all the time since (from what I understand) they don't refrigerate.

Good luck!

So much interesting information here!!!!!!!! Thank you guys! As far as waxworms, I won't do that anymore. I might buy them as treats but not for sickly ones anymore. I've only done that once before and it was with the guy I couldn't save from MBD anyway. Every day you learn more!

With my crickets, I always have a little bottle cap with water in it because they always seem thirsty, lol, and I put a few carrot slices or potato slices in there also. (They are also on oats, which they eat too) then I have another bottle cap with some gutload that I cant remember the name of but its green and squishy and they love it. That's how I do my crickets ^.^

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Waxworms are a pain in the butt to breed, lol! I've done it, and I didnt find it to be worth it considering i couldnt feed them all off! This thread has turned rather interesting I think! I like the views on how everyone gut loads, feeds, and dusts.