something exciting and meal worms.

[yoshimi]

Total of 17 pupa shrimp now! When they're newly pupated and mostly white, I've noticed that's when they do the most wiggling when touched or grasped in tongs. To let potential predators (meal worms, beetles) know not to eat them? More curling in my meal worm cup, but most everybody is hanging around on top. It's very gross to look at if you like eating noodles. No more molting, that I've seen.

My plan (in it's infant stage), is to continue removing pupa as I see them and putting them in the pupa cup on roach bin for warmth, and moving any beetles that appear into a larger bin. Then when I start to see little visible meal worms, move the beetles into another bin just like the first. And when I start seeing meal worms in that bin, hopefully the ones in 1st bin will be big enough to strain out into a deli cup like I have my meal worms in right now. I have tons of deli cups, but surface area won't suffice for beetles, I think. Then I can move beetles back into 1st bin, and unless it spirals completely out of control, keep it going. Sounds ok?

[yoshimi]

The 1st of my pupa shrimp has turned into a beetle! Here's an up and comer: And here's Mr Beetle in his new home:Right now he's munching a carrot chip. 6 days at a high temp, they were right.

[yoshimi]

My baby meal worms hatched! Don't know when, tried not to look at beetles much, but some are a decent (tho small) size already, and others are still tiny-ish, mostly on bottom where eggs were laid.

Only took a million years (a month).

[fish4all]

If you really want to get the most meal worms from breeding separating is going to do that. I used to raise them and have done so off and on for about 10 years. I separated the pupa, (shrimp alien things) from the larva, (the worms) and the beetles all in separate containers. I kept all of them in plastic shoes boxes. By putting plastic canvas down I was able to prevent the beetles from eating the eggs.

The cannibalism is more from a lack of moisture than hunger. If I kept plenty of veggies in a bin I could get okay results without separating them but still nothing compared to really trying and separating them all.

It only took about 6 months to get my 100 starter colony to about 80,000 or so. They almost filled a 1 pound coffee can when I separated them.

If you ever get really adventurous try King Mealworms, a lot more work to get them to pupate and won't breed as fast but can still raise a ton of them in a short time. And the little shrimp alien pupa are so cool at 4x the size.

[yoshimi]

I've been giving them carrot chips on a plastic lid and only removing (and freezing) carrots if they got moldy. They still eat each other tho. Think they might be laying eggs in carcasses but I dunno. Ghastly things, I don't want to know. This was mostly an experiment as I don't really like feeding them to my toad unless they're newly molted, and when the ones I had started to pupate, I just went with it. When pupa turned to beetles, I put them in a small sterilite box with wheat bran, some flattened out pieces of toilet paper tube for cover, with 3/4 of sides covered in paper (for added darkness), letting them do their raping and mauling and egg laying. I can still see some unhatched eggs at the bottom. I'm sort of hoping the beetles I still have (maybe 20-30? i dunno) will just die off. I can't knowingly facilitate their deaths, so I keep feeding them.

Gave Banjo (my toad) 3 or 4 baby meal worms this afternoon. I know she likes them, but I recently had a poop scare where I didn't think she was going and all she'd been eating was european nightcrawlers and a few baby dubia. She pooped tho (yay!) so a few tiny ones, plus the calcium dusted nightcrawler earlier, shouldn't pose much of a risk of impaction. So the superworms or whatever they're called, are out, due to their size and her size.

Between the remaining crickets that just won't die and my roach bins, I just don't have the room for more bug love.

Happy that it worked tho, thought it'd take longer to see little baby meal worms.

[JeffreH]

If you ever get really adventurous try King Mealworms, a lot more work to get them to pupate and won't breed as fast but can still raise a ton of them in a short time. And the little shrimp alien pupa are so cool at 4x the size.

Just to clarify - these are Zophobas morio that Christopher is talking about; more frequently known as "superworms". Only interjecting here because the often marketed 'giant mealworms' and sometimes 'king mealworms', are actually feeder mealworms (tenebrio molitor) that have been given an insect growth hormone. If you buy these, they often do no pupate due to the added hormone, and there may be health implications if fed to your pet (they are best used as bait for fishing). Anyway, make sure you get Zophobas morio, superworms which are also sometimes sold incorrectly as king mealworms = )

[yoshimi]

That's what I assumed, and referred to them as such. Good to note tho.

[fish4all]

Carrots may not be enough moisture to stop the mauling. I tried carrots because they were easy and didn't add much excess moisture. I still used them but I started adding leaf lettuce and other leafy greens and they thrived.

And thank you Jeff, I often forget to make sure to add real names. King mealworms is the term I have used to try and avoid confusion with supers and other genetically enhanced types. Unfortunately the marketer of the worms sometimes don't think about a person wanting to breed them or simply don't care.