Mealworms/Roaches q's and more..

[LizMarie]

I've been thinking a lot lately and I've been feeding my gecko 10 mealies a night since November 4th and she eats them ALL! (except for shedding when she goes off food for around 3days) Do the math that's a crap load of mealworms a month at $2.50 per 50 mealworms making feeders my most expensive expense in owning just ONE gecko at the moment. And when I get them from the pet shop they're half dead anyway so I get a lot less. See why I've been thinking. Thankfully my Secret Santa sent me over some mealworms but if I continue with her expensive eating habit they'll disappear even faster and I'll go broke. For the past week or so I cut down on her feedings to every other night with just 10mealies at each feeding. I feel bad but damn all she does is eat and eat.

With school starting up in just 11 days I'm becoming extremely stressed especially about money so I'm trying to fix my feeder problem so I can reduce my stress and find a more economical way to feed Lana without pulling my hair out. I do not only have a leopard gecko but a dog, cat, 2 love birds and a parakeet so there are a lot of mouths to feed. So I wanted to breed my own feeders for my gecko because I can't exactly skimp on my other pet food purchases. I'm just trying to save money where I can to take off the added stress of my parents since no one seems to want to higher me uggh.

I tried to breed mealworms and NOTHING! They do the hump hump dance but don't seem to produce anything. They've just eaten me out of a can of oatmeal and an entire bag of carrots! They are starting to piss me off actually so I thought I'd do roaches. Roaches I know are more expensive initially but I've heard and been told they're hardy, breed easily in the right environment and can't be bet nutritionally. Only one problem the mealworms I have won't last much longer and the roaches need time to breed since I don't want to start with an obscene amount or feed from the colony beginner and then be left with nothing. I know they multiply fast and I can possibly become overwhelmed but I can always send some to people on the forum or even find people on craiglist that would like to pick them up. Hell maybe I can start a business :main_laugh: .. totally joking!

So I was thinking about ordering a 1,000 medium mealworms for less then $20 and feed from that in the meantime so my roaches have time to grow. I was also thinking since mealworms seem to morph easily in my apt. due to the heat that I can put them in the fridge or in a cooler with some cold/ice packs to slow them down a little. I was planning of leaving them in there and taking out enough for the week ahead and just let them gutload continuously until it's time to feed and do that at the beginning of every week until they were gone and the roaches were established.

Sound any good!?

 

[LeapinLizards]

That is exactly what I have been doing Liz. You know I got into roaches about 6 months or so ago, but I also have 12 mouths to feed, not including this springs babies! I have been barely feeding from the colony (only extra males) because I want to be positive it will sustain itself come spring time.

I think your plan is great, it's been working for me so far! I went from 160 roaches to near 500, with babies EVERYWHERE.

 

[myjoyoverflows]

Are you sure that your beetles didn't lay ANY eggs? It's so hard to tell at first because they are soooo tiny....perhaps they did and they aren't big enough for you to see yet? That's been the case with us...we weren't sure that anything had happened...but when we looked close enough, we had babies everywhere! I have zero experience with roaches...but we are breeding the mealies...and I just wanted to say, before you totally give up...just check again to see if you can find any movement...you may be surprised!

 

[cwazy]

yeah what chels said i mean they are seriously tiny... i have a pic floating around here of one of the ones we found... sooo little... i bet you have thousands and not even know it... have you taken your beetles and switched them to some new substrate? once you do that... keep some small pieces of carrots in your bin with what you "think" is nuttin, and every few days paw around... you will see i promise!

we had our beetles in a very small cup *like what you buy mealies in at a petstore* and they got way over populated so we took them out and got a bin going, i powered up the same mix we used for our mealies and then read somewheres that beetles wont lay on powder as well cuz they need some surfaces to lay there eggs on *grumbles* so off i go redoing yet another tote of stuff for beetles... the beetles were in the tote of powder for about week and a half - 2 weeks... thats it... i get all the beetles out and was going to put some mealies in the powdered stuff... no use in wasting... well i never got around to it, so i said heck with it, lets just keep some carrots in there and see what happens... well apon a very close inspection, there they are!!! all kinds of lil mealies... so now we have probally a few hundred mealies in a couple of cups... and then a bin... that all you have to do is run your finger threw the powder and you can see tons of them... i kid you not there must be tens of thousands of them in there... they are everywhere!!! so dont give up so easily... i bet ya they are there... if you havent seen the pic i have of a baby, and ive actally have seen some half the size of the one i have a pic of, let me know and ill post it up here... its insane! but seriously... switch your beetles around and keep the nutting ness supplied with a lil moisture... you will see

 

[LizMarie]

That is exactly what I have been doing Liz. You know I got into roaches about 6 months or so ago, but I also have 12 mouths to feed, not including this springs babies! I have been barely feeding from the colony (only extra males) because I want to be positive it will sustain itself come spring time.

I think your plan is great, it's been working for me so far! I went from 160 roaches to near 500, with babies EVERYWHERE.

wow 500! that's nuts! Obviously I'm not planning to start with that many. I just need to cut down the cost of feeders. Mealworms justed to be one $1 for 50.. now just a few years later $2.50, that's insane. Plus it takes almost a $100 a month in car fare just to get to and from school and the price is planning to go UP! Books this semester are going to be expensive but I hope used books can keep the cost low enough so I'm not spending $400-$500 on books that I can't even sell back for ever half price. With all that I just want to eliminate my feeder cost for awhile. All I'll have to buy is some Calcium Plus and maintain the tank incase anything malfunctions.

 

[LizMarie]

Bill and Chels..

I won't give up on them just yet. It just feel like I'm either doing something wrong or they just don't like me. I've left them alone for awhile have seen them mount on another looked through the oatmeal and nothing. I really hope something pops out sooner.

 

[cwazy]

do you have any powered stuff at the bottom??? this seems to work for me... in my own lil thoughts a nice lil layer of powder gives the mealies a place to go when they hatch... *shrug* i still bet they are there

 

[cwazy]

also like i said... if you havent switched your beetles over to new stuff... you should do that and keep the old stuff supplied with carrots... you will see

 

[LizMarie]

Some more questions I missed about the roaches..

Is it ok that I keep them in my closet? I hardly have any floor space (I have a bunch of stuff) and I really don't want a bin of roaches just laying around the room anyway.

 

[fOOlsgOld]

Roaches are just that .... roaches lol..... meaning as long as they have food and water they thrive on neglect. I keep mine in a 45gal container in the basement on a heating pad (now set to medium cause it's cooler down there in the winter) and I check on them every other day when I'm not feeding from them and just top off the water gel cup with water when I pick out the roaches that I'm going to feed.

So yes, your closet would be fine. They do breed faster/better with temps about 85*-90* and if your closet/room can keep them warm enough then that's fine otherwise I would suggest putting a bit of flexwatt or a UTH under them. If you don't want to use the huge container that I am I'm sure a 20Gal plastic box w/ lid would work fine or a 10gal tank even

 

[LizMarie]

Instead of starting a new thread I thought I'd just add to this one. I just bought a bulk load of mealworms to hold me over until my beetles take off or I finalize what I want to do with my feeders.

How exactly can I store Mealworms in the fridge?
I know I put them on wheat bran or oatmeal and take the out to feed atleast once a week. Is there anything else I should know? I'm trying to stretch these mealworms so I don't have to stress where I'm going to get feeders.

 

[Alusdra]

Breeding mealworms is easy but can be frustrating... the main problem I run into is doing too much to try to help them out. I tend to end up with the most mealies when I completely ignore the colony. (Once when going off to school I forgot to bring it... came back 2 months later for the break and there were TONS!) Sometimes heat can help, sometimes you need more moisture... I've had the most success when using potato and then leaving them in even though they look like they are rotting...

It also helps if you check your astrology charts and find when Mars will align with Venus. (j/k)

To store mealies- make sure they have substrate (some form or meal), and that it isn't too deep. A container >maybe 4" will end up killing them (why, I don't know) but shallower ones are fine. Something with breathing holes is great- those ones that pet stores sell to you are like designed really well. If you have old ones just put your online ordered ones in there. DO NOT FREEZE! That will kill them. A warning if you are going to have them at school in one of those mini-fridges: likely you will have to put the temps real low as the freezer part is not well separated. So refrigerate them... you can take them out to feed every week, but it's not necessary. I've 'lost' mealworms in the fridge a couple of times for who knows how long (possibly years) and there were still mostly live ones. You just want to make sure that they are nice and fat when you put them in so they will be ok to survive the hibernation, and then a couple days before you feed take them out and gutload (longer than that and they'll just poop it out, so it's not really necessary).

Roaches are soooo much easier. And the geckos LOVE them. I eat an apple or some carrots every day and just toss that in the cage, give them some of the cat and/or dog food I have already... and they are breeding like mad! I have dubias so they are a bit slower to breed, but with 5 geckos eating from them it's still increasing a lot. And the nicest part is since the adults live for years, when you feed the nymphs you aren't directly taking away from your breeding stock. Woo hoo!

I started with "a container" of dubias from someone on Craigslist who gave them away for free as his colony had gotten too large. It was roughly 4 toilet paper rolls full of them. (However many that is... couple hundred maybe?) I stuck them in a 10g with some egg crates and paper rolls, food on the bottom, and mesh screen thingie on top, heat pad underneath.

Usually I feed the just-shed adult males, as then they are still nice and soft (so no impaction from the wings- this has not happened to me, but I'm concerned it might happen) and then I'm not over-run with the males. Plus in a happy coincidence, the newly shed males hang out right in the open in order to dry out. Easy to nab them.

 

[LizMarie]

I think I'll just slowly transition to roaches because lately my allergies have been acting up. At first I didn't know what is was and dusted everything and I even put on my air purifier on blast hoping that whatever it was would go away. Today I pulled out the mealies/beetle bin (its a 27qt that I put a divider in and the minute I went to check on it my eyes got itchy and my nostrils are burning me and feeling itchy. I never thought it might be the mealworms/beetles but I guess I never had them in such a large quantity before so I might have never noticed.