How do you maintain your mealworm colonies?

[Jay_Bunny]

I have a 3-drawer system going. The worm drawer has all the worms ready for feeding. Once they pupate or are about to pupate, I separate them out into the 2nd drawer so they dont get eaten. The 3rd drawer is for beetles. Periodically I take all the beetles out of the 3rd drawer and dump the food into the worm drawer and replace the food and put the beetles back.

How do you get the shed skins and dead worms out? I've tried sifting but its hard to pick out all the skins and dead worms even when sifting. Any better ways to do this?

[RichsBallPythons]

Hope this link helps you out.

http://www.richsreptileforum.com/non...s-101-t102.htm

[piranhaking]

I do basically the same thing, with seperating the stages. I dont have an easy answer for the dead ones, I just hand pick them out. As far as the skins, I just dont worry about them. I've been considering taking some eggcrate (the light difusing grid, not egg flats) and putting some window screen over it, making a small shelf to sit in the tub. I figure if you pour out the worms after sifting on top of it, the live worm will crawl off, and whatever is left on top of it after a while can be removed and thrown out. I know thats probably totally over kill, but I enjoy odd projects like that. With me its not as much about why, as why not and will it work.

[ice#1]

I've never had a draw set up i always used shallow containers. and to get the skins out just blow on them and they go flying everywhere. dead ones pretty much got to pick them out. or could try not sure if it would work but some kind of strainer pick a bunch up at a time and let it set above the substrate you use so the live ones crawl threw after a few minutes or hours. depending how active they are then you might have to pick a few remaining live not as active ones out.

[jfreels]

I had the three drawer system going also, now I have a 10 drawer with double the size drawers. I'm working on a video that shows the drawers in it. I seperate all stages too. Every few days I take the draws outside and blow on them, like ice.

[piranhaking]

dead ones pretty much got to pick them out. or could try not sure if it would work but some kind of strainer pick a bunch up at a time and let it set above the substrate you use so the live ones crawl threw after a few minutes or hours. depending how active they are then you might have to pick a few remaining live not as active ones out.

I did basically that the other night. I have a small sifter i made with window screen and some plywood. I sifted them out and left the strainer with them in it in the tub, and let them crawl out. Most crawled out, and the ones that didnt, I dumped the sifter and MOST of the live ones stuck to it, and the dead ones fell out, then I turned it upside down and knocked the live ones into the tub. Then I took the ones that fell out, put them back in the sifter and gave them a couple mins to get a good grip, and repeated the process untill all the live ones but a few were in the tray again, then hand picked out the last couple live ones. It was much quicker to do than to type out honestly. That method leaves the skins with the dead ones.

Tomorrow I'm going to put some screen around a piece of eggcrate (the white light diffuser not egg flats) and make a tray to pour them out of the sifter on, so they can crawl straight off and not have to go up the sides. I think that will be much more effective.

[piranhaking]

I did the platform thing, and it was ok, but I found one major flaw in my design. I wrapped the screen on BOTH sides, dont do that. If you do that, any worm small enough to fall through the screen, gets stuck inside. On a more successful note, I have started using a small piece of an egg flat in my pupae tub. MOST of the beetles will crawl up on it, allowing them to be removed MUCH MUCH more easily than picking them out by hand. Grab the egg flat, put it over your beetle tub, give it a few good whacks, and you're done.

[chromeitout]

As for separating skins and dead worms or beetles... like was said i blow the majority of the skins off the top. to separate the dead stuff I remove all water sources for a day or so, sift everything out (live, dead, skins I missed) return bedding to container, put a couple potatoe halves in one side of container, pour all of the sifted stuff into a pile on the other side, wait a couple of hours, most of the worms/beetles have left the pile for the potatoes or have buried in the bedding, skim the surface to pick up all the dead stuff. This leaves very few live worms/beetles to pick out of the mess.