How many Beetles should I keep?

[LizMarie]

I want to start breeding some mealies but everything I look at says to start with a 50-100 beetles, that sounds a little much to me. So can I start with around 25 beetles and see how they do?

I've had a few mealies eating and if I take away the moisture and just feed oats they should pupae a little quicker right?

 

[hybrid]

I started with 0 and now i have way tooooooo many beetles as it is. Anyways....i think 50 would do it. But the more u have the more mealies u will have as well. Its just up to you.

 

[runko]

mealies stink...go with supers

 

[hybrid]

I've had my mealies for almost 3 months now and they have never stunk. I clean their container every2 weeks, maybe thats its. Plus i dont let things get moldy and dont let them sit in there for very long for rot.

 

[Bennayboi]

If you use carrots, and let them sit in oatmeal for a few days they almost smell worse than crickets. I think 25 would be plenty for one gecko, they would probably produce a couple hundred mealworms before they die.

 

[Kosse]

I just started my colony a month or so back. I bought 1000 mealworms and put 500 in the fridge and put the other 500 in a tub w/ bedding. I now have about 10 beatles and ~100 pupae. Once they started turning into pupae they seem to all be going at once. For the past couple of days I've been pulling about 40 pupae a day out of my worm bin.

I have a feeling that very soon I'm going to be overrun by baby mealworms.

 

[fOOlsgOld]

Quick question here, how long dose it take for the beetles to lay eggs and then for the eggs to hatch and grow enough to feed?

 

[runko]

2-4 weeks to lay eggs.....a few months at least

 

[Snowy & Petra de Gecko]

Beetles

The number of beetles that you keep will depend on the number of males and females that you have. I have not seen anything that says how you can determine the sexes of the beetles.

So what amount of beetles to start off with will depend and you can go with whatever amount that you choose and the amount of mealys that you want.

I would assume that 50 would be a good start and the beetles will live for a while.

From what I understand they will take 7 to 10 days to mature, then they will mate and then 7 to 10 days after that the females will start to lay eggs.

The beetles will live for a month or so (from what I understand).

I am going to be starting my own Breeding Colony soon. Right now I have the containers, I purchased the bedding and I am in the process of heating it in the oven to kill off any mites.

The actual live cycle of the Beetle and the mealworms depends on the tempature that the insects are kept at. So growth times will vary.