Raising mealies - made simple

[nats]

So, several months ago I Googled "mealworm breeding".
I found tons of articles, and most of them where WAY to long and over
complicated. Then, after having to read page after page of instructions,
I was even more confused than when I started, and still had alot of questions. I managed to figure it out on my own (thanks anyway!)

So, I thought I would put together my own instructions:

1) Buy a bunch of mealies.
2) Wait for the mealies to pupate (little "aliens")
3) Get a container and put about 1 inch of mealie bedding in it.
4) Remove a few dozen aliens and put them in your container. No need to provide the aliens with moisture, they will be just fine.
5) Wait for the aliens to turn into beetles (takes a few weeks).
6) After all the aliens turn into beetles, leave them alone for 4 weeks.
7) After 4 weeks, remove all the beetles.
8) You will not be able to see them, but you will have tiny mealies. Put a few slices of potato or carrot in there.
9) Check your babies after a few days by lifting up the potato slices and checking out all the teeny mealies clinging to it.
10) Your done, just let them grow up.

You can divide your mealies up when they are big enough for your critters to eat and put some in the refrigerator. Leave the others for breeding so the cycle can start all over again

After you raise a few generations, you will figure out how to always have
mealies ready to eat. :main_yes:

How's that? Simple enough? Or just lame?

 

[Zynx_Keekeio]

Awesome so just over a month more of buying crickets and boom I'll have mealies gallore

 

[Alusdra]

If you want the super simple instructions:

1) Buy and/or find mealworms.
2) Put them in a container with some form of grain.

There you go. No guarantees on consistent levels of feeders- generally this will get you booms of hundreds of mealies followed by long 'dry spells' of few to none. I call this the 'oops I forgot my colony in the closet' or the 'unanticipated protein in the soup mix' method of breeding.

 

[LizMarie]

Hey nats I love that quick simple outline.. But what size container do you recommend and do beetles fly? (silly question but i'm curious) What mealie bedding are you talking about? How long do the beetles last? And do you feed the beetles the same thing you feed the mealies?

It's been awhile since I've last seen a mealie! Lol

 

[nats]

Hey nats I love that quick simple outline.. But what size container do you recommend and do beetles fly? (silly question but i'm curious) What mealie bedding are you talking about? How long do the beetles last? And do you feed the beetles the same thing you feed the mealies?

It's been awhile since I've last seen a mealie! Lol

LOL! nope, beetles do not fly (we would all be in trouble)!
I just use the tupperwear food storage things from the grocery store.
I guess they are about 10'' square and about 3'' high.

I use Flukers cricket chow for bedding, but there are tons of options.
The gut load they sell at Pro Gecko is also very good. Or you could just
run some oatmeal through the blender (its too big for them to eat) and mix
it with some wheat bran.

 

[nats]

If you want the super simple instructions:

1) Buy and/or find mealworms.
2) Put them in a container with some form of grain.

There you go. No guarantees on consistent levels of feeders- generally this will get you booms of hundreds of mealies followed by long 'dry spells' of few to none. I call this the 'oops I forgot my colony in the closet' or the 'unanticipated protein in the soup mix' method of breeding.

LOL!! yep, you could just put them in a container with enough food and
forget them. :main_laugh:
But you would end up with a pretty foul mess! :main_laugh:

 

[Alusdra]

Pfft. Mealies only end up foul if the substrate gets moldy from too much moisture. If you don't put any fruits, veggies or anything that won't happen. Left alone it takes years for the dead beetles to accumulate and the substrate to all get converted to poo. And even then it shouldn't smell. Well, maybe if you use fancy substrates, I've never used anything but oatmeal (old-fashioned only, the instant soaks up water and gets nasty if you look at it funny, which then clumps around the mealies and makes them die and turn squishy, rather than hard, dessicated and black).

Seriously, though, your step-by-step is good. The hardest part is the timing, which you have laid out pretty well.

 

[nats]

Pfft. Mealies only end up foul if the substrate gets moldy from too much moisture. If you don't put any fruits, veggies or anything that won't happen. Left alone it takes years for the dead beetles to accumulate and the substrate to all get converted to poo. And even then it shouldn't smell. Well, maybe if you use fancy substrates, I've never used anything but oatmeal (old-fashioned only, the instant soaks up water and gets nasty if you look at it funny, which then clumps around the mealies and makes them die and turn squishy, rather than hard, dessicated and black).

Seriously, though, your step-by-step is good. The hardest part is the timing, which you have laid out pretty well.

You mean you never put anything with moisture in there like potato or
carrots?
If not, than yeah, you would never have a mold problem, but will they live
and multiply w/o the moisture?
I do remember reading somewhere that you dont need any sort of moisture,
that they get what little moisture they require just from the air!!

 

[hybrid]

I simply use cricket chow/cricket water gel and i have oatmeal for the substrate. I come in every morning open the shelf and boom, loads of "aliens". I take those out, place in separate container. When they turn to beetles...i simply place them into a sep container and place apples/oatmeanl/cricket water in with them in a bowl . I'm still waiting on my eggs to hatch. I probs have about 100-125 beetles now. I check the bottom of the substrate everyday to see if any have hatched and havent seen any yet...i use a flashlight from underneath but cant seem to see any yet...is this normal? some beetles i know have been in there almost a month now.

 

[Alusdra]

I do usually put some sort of moisture in there- if you don't the 'dry spell' is really long. Perhaps because the beetles eat the eggs? Perhaps the eggs take longer to hatch? I'm not sure exactly. I don't separate my colony, and only like every couple days put in something wet. I rarely to never get any mold, even when I leave the colony somewhere for months. Which is why I called it the 'oops I forgot my colony in the closet' method- I literally forgot them in the closet when I was leaving for school, partially because I thought they were all dead. Came back for Christmas, or maybe even the summer- mealworms everywhere! Hundreds and hundreds of them. My current colony is probably over a decade old, and I leave it all the time for months with no care. It seems to, if anything, make mealworms magically appear for when I get back.

The 'unanticipated protein in the soup mix' method is when you or a family member buys those boxes of soup mix and voila! mealworms in the mix. Once we actually cooked and ate the mix- hence why no one in my immediate family buys boxed mix any more. An aunt recently had some end up in her rice she bought- though sadly I only heard about it after she had thrown them out.

So no, you don't need to put any kind of moisture in there, and if you're having lots of mold problems you're probably putting in too much. But if you have more than 1-2 geckos, the low to non-existent levels in the 'dry period' will not be enough to keep your geckos in food, hence the need for the separating, moisturizing and general mealworm pampering that goes on. Unless maybe you had a really gigantic tank. I have them in a ~5g critter keeper plastic thing. Keeping them on the warm side helps, too- not as warm as the geckos, maybe more like 70-80F. Otherwise you end up beating down holiday shoppers in order to grab some mealies when you get to wherever you're spending the hols. And sometimes there isn't a pet store anywhere and your geckos have to fast for a couple weeks while you worry about it all through Christmas... yeah, I know it's bad- but you try to find a pet shop at a NH ski resort and see how successful you are... :main_no: I guess it happened to me in the summer, too- but then I just went out and caught wild crickets.

 

[nats]

I simply use cricket chow/cricket water gel and i have oatmeal for the substrate. I come in every morning open the shelf and boom, loads of "aliens". I take those out, place in separate container. When they turn to beetles...i simply place them into a sep container and place apples/oatmeanl/cricket water in with them in a bowl . I'm still waiting on my eggs to hatch. I probs have about 100-125 beetles now. I check the bottom of the substrate everyday to see if any have hatched and havent seen any yet...i use a flashlight from underneath but cant seem to see any yet...is this normal? some beetles i know have been in there almost a month now.

That's alot of beetles. You should get a zillion little mealies :main_yes:

Yeah, if the beetles are in there that long, it's time to take them out.
It will be some time before you can actually see the babies, but they are in there!
Just put a few slices of potato or carrot in there and in a few days, you will be able to see them clinging to it.

P.S. the babies take FOREVER to grow up!!!!

 

[thegeckoguy]

Do you need to remove the beetles? Ive had beetles for probably over 4 weeks now...

 

[hybrid]

Yes remove the beetles to their own container. They will eat the mealies at times. I know they eat the "aliens" for sure.

 

[kitten]

I just wanted to add what I do:

First, all my mealies are in one of the 3 drawer Sterilite carts.

The top drawer is mealies, middle drawer is beetles, and bottom drawer is the "aliens." I use baby carrots for moisture and I change them out every day no matter what. I would recommend starting with a colony of 1000 or so. I started with 150 and it's been slow moving, but we're getting there!

I use oatmeal as the substrate. I check on them everyday just to move aliens into the correct container and move beetles into theirs. About every month I take the beetles out and combine their bedding with the mealworm bedding for the baby mealies.

Breeding mealies is very simple and only takes about 15 minutes of your time each day, and about 20-30 minutes once a month when changing the beetle substrate.

 

[laurlaur12]

This seems like it will be very helpful, thanks!! Not to sound like an idiot, but what exactly are these "aliens" people keep referring to. i have never kept mealies for more than a week at a time, so i guess i just havent gotten to that stage yet. Also, i only have one Leo, so how many mealies should i get to start my colony, assuming that i will need to take some to feed during the process

 

[kitten]

The aliens are the pupae. And as far as how many you start with, there are several factors you have to think about. Are mealies your geckos only diet? How many does the gecko eat each day? I've read it takes about 3 months before the colony really starts booming.

 

[laurlaur12]

In that case, i should probably get a few more. i started with 200, but she eats about 10 a day, so i will definiteyl go and buy a bunch more tomorow