Superworms death

[G_leopard]

Hi I bought supers last week and on the exact day I bought them I noticed some were dying but 10 out of 300 is not much and thought they had shed skin, but they keep dying I keep them at 75.2 they have bran, potatoes and every day I saw few slow worms, that become thin, then they show black spots all over the belly I guess that spots are the insect tracheas, then they get dark and die and get eaten by other worms, almost two weeks since I bought them and that keeps happening what could be the reason, a parasite?

 

[sunshinegeckos]

I have found that no matter how much food i provide my supers some will die and some will get eaten. I dont think there is anyway to stop it. Its the same with my mealworm colony.

 

[acpart]

I'm not a superworm expert, though I use and breed them. Here are some possibilities to consider:
--too hot during shipping?
--something toxic in the gutload?
--disease or parasite from point of origin?

I'd recommend contacting the place you got them from and letting them know what's happening. They may replace them and in any case should know this in case others are reporting the same situation.

Aliza

 

[moviemanmania]

I agree you should report this to the source they came from. I order 1,000 supers at a time from flukerfarms.com and they are healthy and fat. I set them up in my bin with their Gutload and they are good to go. Sounds like they have some issues with their farm they were raises on.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

I have a good sized superworm colony but ran short recently so bought 1000 at a show. I keep mine no cooler than 80, usually around 85, hardly ever had a single worm die from my own breeding colony (less than 1 a month). The worms I bought are dieing at the rate of about 10 a day, that I can count. Before I started my colony I ordered from greatlakeshornworm.com, and they were great, no issues, so I'll go back to them in the future. In your case Dave, it could be the source or your storage temperatures. They like a warm home. I've had some in an air conditioned room at 76 and they died.

 

[G_leopard]

Thank you I´ll trie raising the temperature I have supers from other source and they are just fine

 

[Landen]

I produce several thousand supers a month and I don't loose any worms at all. I don't believe that your temps are the problem. My entire colony is kept in between 75-80 degrees. The only time that I have lost worms, was in route to a show out of town and they got way too hot in the container I was transporting them in, which they did turn black as you stated above.

Were they fully grown worms? I've heard of people only selling the fully grown older worms in order to reduce chances of the customer being successful in pupating the worms to produce their own. If this is the case, they could of just been near the end of the line I assume? Otherwise it sounds like it's a bad batch or something. Good luck

 

[im faster]

I don't loose any either my set up
16qt for 500-1000 worms one egg flat feed carrots tepmps 80-95 normally around 85,

 

[G_leopard]

The are different size worms few huge only, I separated individually 160 worms th day I got them and some died that night vomiting red ooze and some just got belly flat then died