Water pillows with meal worms???

[piranhaking]

I got some water pillows for my crickets today, and I'm wondering if they would work for meal worms, and their beetles. I didnt know of the meal worms mouths might eat through the pillows or something. Anyone know if it will work??? The pillows i have are solid plastic on the bottom so they dont get the substrate wet.

[suzuki4life]

my only question is why?

why make it so difficult?

I use corn meal....

find a container...i have actually used 5 gallon buckets in the past...


add 3-4" of corn meal to the bottom of your container....

throw in a carrot or two.

if you want to get fancy about gut loading add things like fish flakes, ground up dog food etc to your corn meal. Keep them in the dark....low humidity....and 70-80 degrees is great.

The carrot will be pulled into the bedding...

I like the yellow corn meal because it does not attract wheat mites AND when it turns brown rather than yellow, sift out your mealies and put them in new bedding. Always keep your old bedding for about a month. This will allow small mealies to grow up to a size where they can be sifted out.

mealies are one of those things that are just plain hard to screw up.


You can give them anything vegetable wise pretty much and they will eat it. Be sure it does not mold or dampen your bedding (which will cause mold)

[Jay_Bunny]

Yep, what he said! Mealworms are easy to breed. I use oatmeal, ground cornflakes, the powder at the bottom of my mazuri bag, and on occasion ground up dog food and my mealworms are doing well. I use potatoes or carrots for moisture. Its that simple and they are breeding.

[piranhaking]

Well, since no one had an answer to my question . . . I decided to set up a little experiment. I put about twenty worms in a new tub, with no moisture source other than a water pillow, with in a day or two, they had chewed through the pillow, like I kinda figured they might. Long story short, no, they won't work for the worms. They seem to be working for the beetles though.

[jfreels]

You just don't want excess moisture. I wouldn't doubt that they ate through it. I use to use water crystals for the beetes, on petri dishes. I just stick to carrots now.