The begining of my superworm colony

[jfreels]

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.

[piranhaking]

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.

[piranhaking]

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.

[jfreels]

Good to hear

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.

[piranhaking]

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.

[BAMReptiles]

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

[piranhaking]

I'm a little outside Cookeville.

[piranhaking]

Another message for those who may be following this thread. Just noticed a min ago I HAVE BABIES 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.

[jfreels]

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

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

[piranhaking]

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 )

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.