The begining of my superworm colony

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I've gotta go get some more film canisters, but its a start for now. Those six have been in there for several days, and are now curled up and not moving, so I should have pupae soon I hope. I should also have my dubia roaches in soon, so hopefully between those two and my meal worms I shouldn't have to buy any feeders before too much longer :D

Supers take a while to get started, I'm still trying to get the colony going since March. I have thousands of 1/4 inch worms. They just take a lot longer than mealworms.

If you want to skip on more film canisters, you can go to Wal-Mart or any place that sells crafts and get a bead box. I have a 24 compartment one and just rotate them around. I thought about buying another bead box, but I didn't want the superworm colony as large as my mealworm colony.

You may want to get rid of the egg crate. It's possible that they could eat it, I know they eat paper towel.

Good luck with the superworms. I just got a small container of them to start up my own colony. I want to start raising them now so that by the time my gecko is big enough to eat them (and I have many more geckos) that I have enough to supply them with feeders.

How long does it usually take them to go from egg to a full sized superworm?

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Originally Posted by jfreels

Supers take a while to get started, I'm still trying to get the colony going since March. I have thousands of 1/4 inch worms. They just take a lot longer than mealworms.

If you want to skip on more film canisters, you can go to Wal-Mart or any place that sells crafts and get a bead box. I have a 24 compartment one and just rotate them around. I thought about buying another bead box, but I didn't want the superworm colony as large as my mealworm colony.

You may want to get rid of the egg crate. It's possible that they could eat it, I know they eat paper towel.

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Oh they are eating it already. I didn't figure it could really hurt, and several of the breeding articles I've read suggest it. They say it gives somewhere to hide and crawl around, and that it helps prevent canablism. I've saw the bead box idea before, and thought about it, but I already had the film cans from another hobby of mine (geocaching), so I just went with them. Thanks for the suggestion though, if I didn't already have some of them I'd probably go for the box.

Sounds like they are quite a bit slower that the meal worms. I'm not sure exactly how long I've had mine, but I'd say around may, and my first babies are already getting close to 3/8 an inch. It seems like once they hit about a quarter they really start taking off quick. Good luck with the colony

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

Good luck with the superworms. I just got a small container of them to start up my own colony. I want to start raising them now so that by the time my gecko is big enough to eat them (and I have many more geckos) that I have enough to supply them with feeders.

How long does it usually take them to go from egg to a full sized superworm?

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Any answer I gave to that would just be what you would get from the first few links from a google search. I dont really have any first hand experience with it. I started a colony a few years ago for my college, but lost the job due to the minimum wage increase before I got through a full life cycle. This colony doesn't even have any pupae yet so time will tell. I have heard it is very temperature dependant though, the warmer it is, the faster it happens.

I finally got my first few pupae a few days ago. I forgot how big those things are. Hard to figure out how such a skinny worm can make such a fat thing. I cant wait for my first beetles from this colony.

Finally got my first beetles
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Is there any caresheet type links about how to do this? I have a mealworm colony, but not a superworm one. Those look facinating!

They're a lot alike really, as I mentioned earlier some people suggest some egg flats for them to crawl on, but they only turn to pupae if you isolate them. Thats where the film canisters and bead boxes being discussed come in. They can NOT!!!! be put in the fridge or they will die. Care sheets are pretty easy to find (google is your friend). There is more of a variety of lines of thought on these guys though. Some people discuss putting them in ecoearth or dirt, stuff like that, personally I use the same stuff as for my meal worms. I had a colony going back at school this way, but didn't have it long enough for the babies to get much of size to them. Keep an eye on this thread, I'll be keeping it updated as I go, and you can see how my method works out.

Very cool! I only have giant mealworms as my "big" worms. I've been buying most of my feeders, because I hate cricket chirping, and my mealworm culture got knocked down.

I'll keep an eye out. It's facinating.

The giants won't breed for you. Just so you know, not sure if thats your intentions or not. Dubia roaches are pretty awesome, I just got started with them too. NO smell, they can't climb much, they can climb a little though I've found out. They're live bearers, so you dont have to deal with laying boxes, and they dont eat the babies, so they dont have to be seperated like crickets. Most importantly they make basically NO!!! noise. They do have a very very quiet hiss if they're disturbed, but you have to be paying attention in a quiet room to hear it.

I'm in florida, so it's illegal to import most roaches. Thanks for the thought though. All the roaches around here are 'free range'.

No, the giants are in the fridge to be fed to the geckos, not in a culture.

Sorry, I didn't think about that :(. Gotta love how a few bad apple who are irresponsible can ruin stuff for the rest of us. Just because some people cant control and contain their animals they think no one can. :(

Congrats on the beetle! I just got my first pupa a few days ago and I'm waiting for a few more to pupate. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread to see how things work out. :) :D

plan on waiting a while lol. Its kinda a long process. The eyes will darken first, then the legs begin to darken, then the antenna will darken. As that happens the plate on the top of the head begins to show, then you're a day or two away from beetles. I've got three now, another one came out overnight. The first two still aren't black yet.

Up to six beetles now. Does anyone know if there's an easy way to sex the beetles? I've tried looking for it before, but haven't had much luck. I know it doesn't really matter, I'm just curious.

Check the feet. Female beetles wear pink booties... males wear blue booties.

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Check the feet. Female beetles wear pink booties... males wear blue booties.

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lol! :D

You can't tell. You'll have to wait and see if they start mounting each other. You're bound to have a female or two out of the 6. I started my superworm colony with only 12 beetles originally. They gave me a lot of offspring.

Woohoo! 6 beetles! I know with darkling beetles, the females tend to be larger. Not sure if that is true with these guys. I'm up to 4 pupa and two more are about to pupate. :) Update when you get little itty bitty worms.

Actually, after you get enough beetles, there is no way you could sex them by size. And they are both darkling beetles ;) If I remember correctly, there are like 20k different species of the darkling beetle.

Interesting thing happened yesterday. A friend of mine stopped by, and I was showing him the colony. I have the egg crate setting where the egg part is facing down, and in the "holes" between the egg parts I saw three worms curled up. There was food and fresh carrots in the tub. Not sure what stressed them enough to cause they to do that, but for whatever reason they did. Anyway, there's three I didnt have to have film cans for :D.

It's not a must, it just ensures the process in a near timely manner. I have had them 'C' up in feeding dishes. I'll then put them in an empty drawer in my rack and they will pupate. After they 'C' up, you can group them together to save space in whatever container you're using for them to pupate.

In my craft box, I'll put 3-4 into one section so I can add more superworms to the craft box.

I had wondered about that. Do you just leave them together and remove the beetles as they emerge? or do you seperate the pupae that look about ready to "hatch", so that the beetles cant damage the other pupae? As big as they are, I didn't know if they would bother them much or not. I've heard they CAN, I'm just not sure how big a problem that really is, as long as you remove them in a reasonable amount of time.

The beetles WILL eat on the pupae when they need food/water. As long as you do it once a day, you should be fine. But, after they pupate, I seperate them into a seperate container with a little food. Then once I see the beetles in that small container, I move them with the rest of the beetles. I'm using a little notecard box for the pupae. Doesn't have to be big or anything.

But by no means do they need to stay in the pupating container until they turn into beetles.

Thanks. I seperate my beetles out of my meal worm pupae tub on a daily basis already, another min or two wont hurt. Now I can kick up production a little :D.

Sounds good! Don't get frustrated. I've found that superworms take a little longer to get going compared to mealworms. In fact, I have about 100 large superworms now I should probably start getting ready to pupate.

For those who may be following this thread, just thought I'd give a quick update. I don't see any baby worms so far, but the beetles seem to be doing good, other than the one that got his legs chewed off. I think I may have put it in with the other beetles when it was still too soft, and not moving very quick, and they attacked. Now I am taking beetles out of the pupae tub, and putting them in a "hardening" tub until they are fully black, before going in with the main colony.

Great job with the updates!

You don't need to worry about them getting 'black' before putting them in with the other beetles. That probably means you're not providing them with enough moisture. Though I suppose it could just happen anyway, but I don't think I'd worry about making sure they have turned black first.

I'd cull any that don't have wings that connect though. I've found that 9/10 times, they literally get their butt chewed. I started pupating some of my supers last week. A lot have already curled and I put them with other curled ones and put some more in there. No pupae yet though.

It might be a moisture issue. I had two new ones I added to the first group, and both had legs taken off. One had ALL its legs taken off. I also have one who's wing covers dont meet, but it hasn't been bothered so far. It was one of the first couple to emerge.

I feel bad for the ones that get their back side chewed on. One time, they almost chewed all the way up to the head. Now, if I see one getting picked on, I'll just feed it off to one of my beardies.

I know this sounds crazy, but it really seems like they were just being territorial. I haven't added any new beetles to that tub, and no more have been bothered. I also have started putting the new beetles in another tub, and none of them have been bothered. SO. . . today i put one beetle from the first tub (the ones that were attacking the new beetles), in with the new tub of beetles. I'll see what happens now.

the previously added "old" beetle is still ok today, so I added another, and one newly emerged one. I decided to flip the egg flat over to change things up a little (back when I dealt with fish it was always suggested to rearrange the tank a little to break up territories.) I'll update again in a day or two.

Good to hear :gj:

I might have stated it before, but I didn't have any egg crate for my superworm beetles. Let me know if you think it adds any benefits. I'd imagine they would just lay eggs on it.

They are all together, and all doing well now. I still dont know for sure what the issue was, but no more legs are being chewed off, so whatever the issue was must be resolved. :)

hey piranha where in tn are you? im in clarksville. iv also got a super worm colony started up but i jsut leave all of them worms/pupa/beetles int he same container, and iv got tons of little baby worms lol i use a blend of dried milk oatmeal and corn grits i think it was? seems to work very well for them, with potatoes and carrots added in

I'm a little outside Cookeville.

Another message for those who may be following this thread. Just noticed a min ago I HAVE BABIES:D I looked in on the tub of substrate left from the "old" beetle tub, and saw some movement. They're pretty tiny though. I need more of my stackable tubs now lol. This substrate is in an old superworm tub from where I bought them at the store for now. I'll be making another walmart run soon.

I'd get them off of the bedding ASAP if you want to control the size of the worms. That was my biggest headache in the beginning. I'd keep them on the bedding until I could see worms. That would usually be about 3-4 weeks.

The problem with that was when I had adults, I'd also have many other worms that were many molts behind the adults. To me, that was frustrating, especially when I add them to my dragons salad. They don't always eat all of their salad so if I need to pick small supers out of the old salad, it becomes a pain. Of course I don't want to just throw them out :oops:

I'm now doing a 10 day cycle with two drawers of beetles (~1" bedding, combine into one tub after 10 days). I'm planning on using rat/mouse rack DIY plans to construct a bigger outfit. I'd have to make a conservative estimate of 30k mealworms in my colony now and I'm ramping up the supers now so I'll need more storage!

Keep posting updates! Sorry if I keep talking about my methods too, but I think we could learn from each other :D:rolleye2:

They are already off that batch of bedding. Thanks for the tip though:) I had poured it in that empty worm cup when I finished adding all the beetles to the second tub. I didn't see babies when I switched it, but I knew they would be there soon, so I stuck it in there for the time being (I needed the other tub for my meal worms :P)

Controling size isn't as important to me right now, because honestly, I just pull one or two out as I need them (I'm only feeding one leopard gecko at this point), but I'll keep that in mind if it becomes an issue later. And no need to appologize, hearing other people's ideas is what we're all here for. Oh, and by the way, I saw that beetle I mentioned before about the wing covers not meeting, well they actually do, its just that the actual wings are sticking out from under the shell part, so it looks a little odd. That may be why it hasn't been bothered.

I'm at just a little over a month on that bedding, but I only had a few beetles to begin with on it. I'll probably go to something more like a week and a half to two now that I have more (around a dozen and a half or so if I remember right) and should get more consistent production from them. I also need to go get some more supers, because I'm out of worms now for food and for expanding the colony. I've got a couple more pupae waiting to morphy, but thats it other than my beetles and babies.

Well, the canibalisn was over for a little while, then started back up full force. I finally noticed one day it seemed as though they were teaming up and trapping one beetle in the bottom of the egg crate and picking them apart. I then quit using egg crate and went to papertowel rolls, and haven't had as much as a single leg taken off since. I lost quite a few beetles figuring that out, but now all seems well. I plan to get a new tub of worms soon and get some more beetles going and finally get my population up a little. My first batch or two of worms are still doing well.

What happens if you don't use anything ;)

I think I mentioned it before, but I only see cannibalism when I forget to give them a water source for many days.