Mealworms turning into beetles.

[Jay_Bunny]

Don't ever let me loose in Petsmart (or any pet store for that matter) with a store credit.

I tend to feed my mealworms things I normally buy for myself anyway (I eat my weight in oatmeal, I swear) so it is no added expense to feed the mealworms. (so far anyway. I only have a small colony going) Oatmeal, cornflakes, and bran flakes (enough for a decent sized colony) shouldn't cost you any more than $10 per month and if you normally keep fresh veggies around, just give them the scraps. (broccoli stems, carrot tops, potato peelings) Around here, its over $2 for 50 mealworms. My single leo puts away at least 10 a day at minimum. That's at least $2-4 a week on feeders for her. It is a lot cheaper to breed my own.

[CoolioTiffany]

Don't ever let me loose in Petsmart (or any pet store for that matter) with a store credit.

I tend to feed my mealworms things I normally buy for myself anyway (I eat my weight in oatmeal, I swear) so it is no added expense to feed the mealworms. (so far anyway. I only have a small colony going) Oatmeal, cornflakes, and bran flakes (enough for a decent sized colony) shouldn't cost you any more than $10 per month and if you normally keep fresh veggies around, just give them the scraps. (broccoli stems, carrot tops, potato peelings) Around here, its over $2 for 50 mealworms. My single leo puts away at least 10 a day at minimum. That's at least $2-4 a week on feeders for her. It is a lot cheaper to breed my own.

I would go crazy with the store credit lol. I would most likely need one of those children leashes to keep me from running everywhere lol!

I hope to start out with a pretty good sized colony too. I have only 3 mealworms left, and one of them is in it's cocoon about to be an adult pretty soon here. I will try to get one more mealworm to at least grow but if it does not in the next week then I will just try to breed the two I already have.

[Jay_Bunny]

It has taken almost a month for my container of 50 mealworms to turn into almost 12 beetles and 10 pupa (got two beetles today ). So I would go out and get a few containers of mealworms to start with. I hope to get another container or two next week since I'm running out of mealworms already (I've been feeding mostly crickets so that I can get as many pupa as possible (got 5 today!)

A single female will lay tons of eggs, but it takes a long time for these eggs to become the correct sized mealworm for feeding. I believe that mealworms stay worms for 8-10 weeks, if I remember right. Ok, let me see. This is what I remember as far as stages.

1-2 weeks - Egg
8-10 weeks - Larva (mealworm)
1-2 weeks - Pupa
2-4 weeks - Adult Beetle (I could be mistaken on this one)

I could be wront, but that is what I remember. I'm going to go on google to see if I can find out if I'm right.

[Jay_Bunny]

Well I can't find the page I was looking for, but in general, that is what you can expect. Though my pupa tend to become beetles far faster than what I normally am used to. During my last colony, it took 1-2 weeks for a pupa to become a beetle. Right now, my pupa are becoming beetles in about 4-5 days, sometimes less. When I looked it up, it said that pupa can turn into beetles anywhere from 3 to 30 days, depending on environmental factors, so if you want your pupa to become beetles faster, I'd put them in a warm spot. It also says that a female beetle can lay up to 500 eggs!

[CoolioTiffany]

Well I can't find the page I was looking for, but in general, that is what you can expect. Though my pupa tend to become beetles far faster than what I normally am used to. During my last colony, it took 1-2 weeks for a pupa to become a beetle. Right now, my pupa are becoming beetles in about 4-5 days, sometimes less. When I looked it up, it said that pupa can turn into beetles anywhere from 3 to 30 days, depending on environmental factors, so if you want your pupa to become beetles faster, I'd put them in a warm spot. It also says that a female beetle can lay up to 500 eggs!

Wow this will be some awesome "project" for me to do. And besides that, this will be the first thing I have ever bred lol. I hoped for ball pythons to be the first thing I bred, but I guess not :]

[Jay_Bunny]

Haha, mealworms were my first too. But snakes come in more cool colors than darkling beetles do.

Good luck with the mealworm breeding. Keep us updated on your progress.

[CoolioTiffany]

Haha, mealworms were my first too. But snakes come in more cool colors than darkling beetles do.

Good luck with the mealworm breeding. Keep us updated on your progress.

Definitely will, thanks for helping me out too

[Jay_Bunny]

No problem.

[guambomb832]

Well I am trying to breed superworms right now and I have 11 pupae right now waiting to emerge but I think there are almost the same thing just that you don't put superworms in the fridge like you would with mealworms. The food and bedding I use is just what I get when they come in and luckily I had bought so many of these in the past I was able to fill up a whole container. I will post pics later.