Where can I buy some healthy mealworms?

[Immy]

I want to be able to breed them too.

Thanks!

[jfreels]

I started my colony from the ones you get from the pet store. Just get 100 large and leave them alone and let them turn to beetles then let them do their thing. There are MANY sources online to get them. The cheapest I have found are on faunaclassifieds. If you lived close, I'd give you a 1000 or so. I even have a couple hundred pupae, but currently I'm not selling any out of state.

Once you get the colony going, they really take off. I started with 15 beetles or so and now I have more mealworms than I know what to do with.

[piranhaking]

I got mine from petco. I got the big five hundred count tubs. I'm actually about to post some pics of my colony in a couple mins. Just dont put them in the fridge, leave them out, so they'll morph.

[piranhaking]

I recently found out that the "giant" meal worms are basicly useless for breeding, so make sure you get regulars. As I mentioned in my post about my colony, the beetles either dont form right, or die VERY quickly.

[jfreels]

Giants shouldn't be used, I believe that the beetles will be steril. That's what I remember reading anyway.

As far as the deformities, that could be a host of other things. They should still pupate and turn into beetles fine. I don't know from first hand knowledge though. I just always thought it was like tomatoes at the grocery store...they are produced with chemicals that make their seeds non-fruit bearers.

[piranhaking]

Well, my regular worms turn into beetles just fine, and they are all kept in exactly the same conditions, (the pupae even in the same container) but many of the giants would have major wing deformities, or they would have the beetle front end, the hard wing covers, but the back end of a pupae still. I read a few different things on other sites where other people had the exact same issues.

[jfreels]

Ahh okay. I get deformities too with my colony, I have about 20-30 beetles emerging a day. Usually one every couple days will have some sort of deformity. I hate when they have deformed wings, the other beetles will usually eat them from their tail up to midsection and they will live for days. I've been meaning to make a birdfeeder that will hold any beetles I want to cull. Currently I'm giving them to a co-worker that has turtles.

My dragons get some beetles from time to time, but none with deformities.