Quaker Oat meal for mealies? and mealie health question.

[Crazygecko]

I was wondering if you can use quaker plain oatmeal for mealies? I took a bunch of my mealies and tried to make a colony from them so I put them in quaker oatmeal. Things looked like they were going good. I got a pupae in the first week then nothing after that. All the mealies seemed to be doing great and growing fast. Then this week I put in some potato for them and nothing at all. They didnt even try to eat it and now there all looking like there on the verge of dying. Most are on there sides and hardly moving at all. All of them are pretty good size.
Any clue as to what is causing this?

 

[nats]

I was wondering if you can use quaker plain oatmeal for mealies? I took a bunch of my mealies and tried to make a colony from them so I put them in quaker oatmeal. Things looked like they were going good. I got a pupae in the first week then nothing after that. All the mealies seemed to be doing great and growing fast. Then this week I put in some potato for them and nothing at all. They didnt even try to eat it and now there all looking like there on the verge of dying. Most are on there sides and hardly moving at all. All of them are pretty good size.
Any clue as to what is causing this?

Quaker oats are fine but used as a bedding for mealies is not good because the stuff gets really funky and smelly after a few days.
I use bran mixed 50/50 w/ Fluker's cricket feed. It has tons of vitamins and minerals needed for proper gut loading, and doesnt stink! :main_yes:

PS. try apple instead of potato for their moisture. You may like that better. It smells better too

 

[bitterbeauty]

I use regular oatmeal for bedding mixed with a chicken feed. Only thing about the oatmeal is that you need to grind it up in the food processor to make it better for the mealworms. I grind mine up to a powder. It also makes it easier to sift the mealworms out. I use carrots and my mealworms love them. (They have less moisture content as well so it causes less problems.)

 

[Isujustice05]

i take oatmeal, dog biscuits, bran, some calcium, little bits of different dried healthy nutritious ingredients and throw it all into a food processor and by the way i though mine were not doing anything until i scooped up a handful of the bedding and looked only to find thousands of 3 mm long mealies in my hand

 

[Bling_my_leo]

I use quaker oats for my mealie colony, and they do just fine. I blend the oats up in a blender. Blended oats help the mealies eat it better, much better.

 

[Crazygecko]

Ok I am wicked lazy when it comes to my meal worms. Is there any company out there that sells a ready made mix that I can just put in a small tub and put some mealies in and not have to deal with mixing things together. lol


Oh and I just noticed that I had a few more pupae when I checked the almost dead looking mealy colony.

 

[Crazygecko]

I am almost thinking they are unactive cause there all about to change into pupae. I went a week with only 1 pupae and then today I have 6. It also seems like only the large mealies are very inactive. So I am hoping thats all it is. But now I am thinking if they all change I am going to have way to many beetles. lol

 

[FelanMoira]

okay, i'm lazy I don't blend and I let them grind the oats themselves and they do a fine job and have for years LOL