Medium live mealworms - keeping them

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It says that on 'most' of the products, not all, Unless it has been changed recently ;) either way though you could claim it isn't a growth hormone haha, just a hormone that stops pupation. but yes they are definitely normal mealworms.
Yeah I agree they are normal mealworms but im more inclined to think they have been "line bred" to grow bigger than being influenced by growth hormones.
I have bred the "superworms" before and they have consistently produced mealworms the same size as the parents
 
I'm glad to make you happy ;), and yep, the beetles do have wings and most likely can fly, I have just found that if they are given a sheet of paper or cardboard to live under, they don't seem to want too.

Very true, in fact most keepers who've kept meallies for years may never see them fly away. Only reason they ever do is if they need to search for food, and since we usually do feed them quite well there's really no point in investing the energy to do something pointless... just figured i'd throw in the info :)
 
I just bought a 5 kilo bag of juicing carrots for my meal worms. I'm a little obsessed...
 
Jen- a 5kg bag..jeez how many mealworms do u have..coz that's alot of carrots! Lolby the way guys.. Holy moly! My beardie Lola is soo fat,she totally loves the beetles!.. I think they prefer seinf the movement.. And that's what attracts them, I tried feeding off as many of the pupae as possible and now I have about 10 left..I also had about 8 bettles,some were barely classified as that..they were like half formed almost there but Lola ate em anyway..did I menchen she's so fat lol.. She's like a frigging garbage disposal..eats anything!.. She eats the fake plants,today she ate newspaper while trying to attack crickets..she ate all of those too.. And then I stupidly fed her the beetles thinking she may have 1 or 2..no she ate em all ,and then ate 2 pupae as well lol.. But she pooped before so I guess it's ok but I srsly think I need to put her on a diet.. And possibly build a little lizard treadmill lmao..

Oh also was wondering with the pupae if adding heat would speed up the morph process and if it's safe to give em some heat for an hr a day or if this is a bad idea..I dnt want to cook them lol
 
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I just have 2 tubs of mealies, 1 tub with beetles and 2 tubs of roaches. I also give carrots to the dogs - if I don't, they go and steal it from the tubs :( Warmth should speed up the pupating process, a heat mat under the tub won't cook them. Or just keep them in a warm room. Just remember that mealworms and pupae are very high in fat and shouldn't be a staple but a treat, and as for the beetles, I would be careful of the chitin. (A lot of mine are munted too, they breed just as well)
 
Chitin and munted?.. Gonna have to explain those ones for me... See everyone sys that fat thing but I dnt really think it's true,I mean they have more fat than a cricket but it's not an extremely high number..well I fed em mealies for a week and it didn't seem to have any effect, but now I'm back on the crickets thank god so basically jst been waiting for them to morph. I am feeding the beetles as soon as they emerge and are still white so there not too hard ..although I heard Lola eating em last night and it was jst crunch crunch! So I'll see how she goes with digesting em..depending how long it takes her to poop I'll know more how many I should feed
 
chitin is the hard covering on the worms and beetles (pronounced kytin) munted means um, lets go with 'messed up'. I only feed the worms that are newly shed, since I have gex and not something larger :)
 
So it's probz not a good idea to feed many?.. Do you think it will be ok to feed maybe 6-8 providing they have jst emerged.. I def don't wanna leave em til there black and their exo skeleton has hardened even more.. Lola really likes em and im thinking of getting more and doing the same thing all over again and basically feeding as a treat,but If ppl have had problems I don't wanna take the risk..I can def see the difference in feeding mealies as opposed to crickets.. When I feed mealworms there stomachs looks really bloated and they take longer to poop..and everytime they'd eat lots I'd have a massive panic attack after and proceeded to give numerous amounts of baths.. But I did feed em mealies for a week and they were ok ,I think thanks to the bathing but u can def see the negative impact it has on em..I dunno how ppl who only feed mealworms don't have Impacted dragons... Or maybe they do
 
Maybe try sticking to the newly morphed beetles, and newly shed mealies, and keep the beetles that have hardened for breeders. Check also to see of the poop contains a lot of undigested chitin.
 
I'm starting to get some pupae now, I'm fishing them out and putting them into a separate tub (the tube my first lot of mealworms came in - less the bedding).
Finding 2 or 3 pupae per day, I've got about 300 mealworms in the tub. I'm changing the bedding (Purina wheat meal) every week and putting fresh chopped up carrot in every few days (not letting the carrot go mouldy this time). Tried apple slices , don't think the mealworms liked the stuff.

How long does it take for the beatles to emerge ?

I've not tried offering the pupae to Lizzy yet. If she turns her nose up at them no loss, I'll try offering her the beatles when they emerge or if I get enough viable pupae and beatles I'll use them to start a breading colony of mealworms.

What do the beatles eat ?
 
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The pupae take a week or two to morph into beetles.
The beetles I have found like to eat carrot and broccoli stalks
 
You don't need to change the bedding, if you use a larger particle such as oats, then you can just sieve the worms waste out when you need too - I have several hundred in a 57 liter tub and sieve it out every few months.

Sofoula, there are a couple of pics of my set up on my fb page, if you feel like having a look :)
 
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Jen- yeh sure ,although I have originally bought like a 30g tub and now only have 5 beetles to use for breeding lol.. But I can still check it out coz if they breed I think I'm gonna have alot and need more containers.Btw has anyone got or does anyone use that 3 shelve plastic organizer thing.. I think I wanna get one o those..seems easiest

Jen- btw she digested the bettles well..she made a massive pooh lol but it was not err chunky and full of bettle parts that I noticed...actually seemed kinda better than when I feed her the worms,coz they always come out half digested.. I think it's because she dosent chew em she jst swallows and eats em up so fast..but with the beetles and other things she has more time to chew,so I still am only gonna feed as a treat I dnt wanna go over board but yeh now I kno what to expectalso what about feeding the larvae? They would be quite soft I imagine,and yeh pretty small but then again so are my pygmys..I might give it a go if/when there here..unless that's a bad idea?
 
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You don't need to change the bedding, if you use a larger particle such as oats, then you can just sieve the worms waste out when you need too - I have several hundred in a 57 liter tub and sieve it out every few months.

Sofoula, there are a couple of pics of my set up on my fb page, if you feel like having a look :)

My wealworms are in a big round take away food tub (about 1/2 full of wheat bran), not progressed to a larger worm farm container yet. (Think I have about 300 worms in it, this is 1/2 my second batch, I took the trouble of buying a 100g tub and immediately separating and counting the worms (100g == 650 medium worms) and I froze 1/2 of them.

I find that the carrots (that I cut into long chunks) start to go mouldy in about 3 days and since I think mouldy carrots killed a lot of my first batch of worms, I remove the carrots when they get wet/slimy to touch now.

I'm keeping my worms at room temperature as my refrigerator is too cold for them, runs at < 7 C and I am not inclined to adjust the refrigerator's thermostat to enable me keep worms in the fridge (will mean food will spoil quicker and my wife does not want worms living in the fridge).

I find that the bedding gets smelly after about a week - 10 days and Lizzy doesn't like the smell of the worms when the bedding is smelly. She's got to be really hungry to accept smelly worms. I've had this batch with minimal losses at room temperature since the 4th.

I found I had a lot of cannibalism going on with my first batch of worms, they are like little vampires - sucked a lot of their mates dry. Only lost a few this way this time - nice carrot pieces seem to keep them happy.

So fsr I've fished out 12 pupae.

When my beatles emerge, I'll put them into a separate tub with some bedding (a thin layer) to lay their eggs in that I'll screen to remove all the fine wheat meal from - hoping that'll make it easier to extract the eggs, Else I'll just let the eggs hatch in that tub.

I've only one lizard to keep happy, my little house lizard Lizzy the Skink, and she'll never want more than 3 or 4 worms 2 or 3 times a week, she catches a lot of her own food under the house and inside the house and likes foraging on the kitchen floor for little bits and pieces. And I often put food treats on a take away lid for her to find (bits of diced BBQ chicken meat, bits of roast lamb, the occasional small seedless grape (cut in half), the occasional raw pea).
The mealworms and the occasional medium live cricket are treats and I am using them as a means of building my relationship with Lizzy (and to encourage her to stick around). So far so good and I've made a lot of progress with her, she now accepts food treats from my fingers, and allows me to stroke her and even hand surfs sometimes.

I've also plans on using mealworms as fishbait. Not sure how that'll go, but I suspect mullet, whiting, bream and yellowtail will like them, and I might find them OK for freshwater lake and river fishing species (bass and yellowbelly) ,so any surplus of mealworms wont go to waste. And they seem to freeze pretty good too.
 
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I can't understand why your bedding is going smelly, or your carrots mouldy - do you have a lid on the container? Have a look at the photos I put on fb (my profile is open so you should be able to). Also, the egg are miniscule, as are the newly hatched mealies, just chuck the beetles in a container with some rolled oats and when the worms are big enough move them over into a larger tub - this will take several weeks. As for the surplus - I feed extra pupae and worms to my mice, they go insane for them.
 
Huh, really? Bugger.
 
I can't understand why your bedding is going smelly, or your carrots mouldy - do you have a lid on the container? Have a look at the photos I put on fb (my profile is open so you should be able to). Also, the egg are miniscule, as are the newly hatched mealies, just chuck the beetles in a container with some rolled oats and when the worms are big enough move them over into a larger tub - this will take several weeks. As for the surplus - I feed extra pupae and worms to my mice, they go insane for them.

I kept my first lot with no lid, and a mouse or some mice raided them one night. Made a big mess. No it wasn't Lizzy who raided them, because they were on the kitchen bench (never seen Lizzy up there) and it happened overnight).

I have been keeping the lid on overnight ever since, even though I have not seen a mouse or any sign of a mouse in the house since Lizzy woke up from brumation.

Keeps the worms warmer overnight (they are very active at night and I've seen a few come close to escaping if the lid is off).

I'll have to get a bigger plastic container to raise and keep my worm farm in if I am successful at breading them.
 
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First beatle

25 aug

My first beatle "hatched" overnight.

It's on a bed of ground then screened rolled oats (I removed the fines)and I'm going to try to keep my beatles separated from my pupae (in the same container but the pupae are in a smaller open container that I'm the beatles wont be able climb back into - someone here said they'll eat the other pupae given the chance).
I've some carrot chunks in the pupae / beatle container (in a low walled "dish" so I can avoid contact of the carrots with the rolled oats - hopefully if the carrot goes mouldy - it'll not effect the rolled oats if it's not in contact - I'll be taken the old carrot out and replacing it every few days to avoid mouldy carrots since I'm not sure if the beatles can tolerate mouldy carrots.
 
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