meal worms

[adam&nikki]

i just bought 500 mealworms and am thinking of breeding them so i have them in a cricket keeper for now i placed some oats in the bottom then placed my meal worms in it how long will it take 500 meal worms to become bettles and if i buy 500 every 2 weeks and not feed any off how long should it take to have a stable population?

 

[ElapidSVT]

depends a lot on temps. there's a great article on raising mealworms written by snakegirl. check it out!

if they have ever been in the fridge i hear they take forever to pupate.
i prefer wheat bran as it holds less moisture so it has less tendancy to mold.

good luck!
rob

 

[Nocturnal]

i have some tips for you. up to you if you wanna follow it.

Mealworm Breeding setup:
1. Put oats or wheat bran ( i prefer oats because theyre easier to find) until all worms are covered. but dont put too much.
2. If you find pupas, separate them in a container. i recommend puting paper towels ( when the pupa turned into a beatle, the beatle whould have a hard time standing up.
3. Put the beatle into a container with oats in it, even oats in small quantities would do.
Put the cylinder of the tissue (when the tissue all got used up, there's a brown thing made of paper that would be ideal as a hide for darkling beatles.
4. get potatoes, apples or carrots, they make good food for your beatles.
5. change the substrate after 2 weeks and keep the old substrate in a separate container.
6. when you see small Mealworms in the substrate, transfer them to the main larva setup.
7. you good to go. Enjoy