I want to start breeding some of my stable insects plus the wax worms. I have heard several ways to breed them, but I want to know which is the best. How do you breed your wax worms and/or meal worms?
Just as an aside, as I'm sure you know, neither of these feeders make for good staple food items. They are best to add some variety as treats to a diet that is more heavely based on feeders like crickets, roaches, silkworms, etc. I always encourage anyone who is able to, to invest in roaches as they can make for a stable staple feed item that is relished by most any herp and is effortless to breed. Mealworms: Mealworms are incredibly easy... effortless really. There are a number of ways to accomplish breeding mealworms. The simplest: order or buy a large quantity (say, 500-1000ct) and place them into a bin with about 3" of substrate/gutload. For the breeding colony this can be as simle as wheat bran or rolled oats. Simply keep the larvae at room temperature (or warmer, for faster production) and care for them as you would for typical feeders...providing moisture via salad items to be fed on top of the substrate/gutload (nothing too wet). With time, the larvae will pupate, and then become beetles. The beetles will lay massive amounts of eggs, die, and soon new baby larvae mealworms will appear to start the cycle over. What's nice is the beetles do not lay all of their eggs at once, but over the course of a couple of weeks (if my memory serves me correctly). This allows cycles to begin to arise over time, where you have constant beetles, pupae, larvae and eggs in the bin at all times, and will only have to select your mealworms for feeding out of the bin as you choose. Now, that was the easy; lazy way to go about it. I've left mealworm colonies virtually untouched for months and still had production keeping everything in one bin, but if you want maximum production, follow this strategy: Obtain a few plastic bins or similar containers and fill with the substrate/gutload. One bin will be for feeder larvae mealworms, one for rearing eggs into baby mealworms, and one for pupation into beetles and breeding. Cycling in this manner keeps a constant supply of different sized mealworms - simply move the beetles and new pupae into a new bin with fresh substrate/gutload every 2 weeks or so. This method will prevent other worms and beetles from accidentally ingesting the very tiny eggs that adhere to the surface of the substrate, resulting in maximum production. One babies are large enough, they can be placed into the feeder colony - and excess worms that pupate from this colony will be added to the beetle bin to start the cycle over again (and the now expire baby bin may be reused as a breeder bin to produce more babies). Again, depending on the quantity you feed...I still managed to produce an obscene amount of mealworms by rearing in one bin. I practically ignored them and still produced plenty - but the above method is much more organized and ideal for ease of feeding and production. Waxworms: I bred waxworms many years ago but never found it all that useful; it wasn't really worth the space and time to breed them when I could buy a cup to feed as treats every now and then for $2, but they do make decent fishing bait, lol. But breeding them is very easy as well. Here are a couple of links that describe the process quite well: http://www.herpcenter.com/breeding-feeder-insects/breeding-waxworms.html http://www.ehow.com/how_5076422_breed-waxworms.html I generally hate linking to answers - but my details of the exact process of making the food for them and the life cycles escapes me, so these links will explain it much better = ) for both species, there are a variety of youtube videos as well that demonstrate the steps visually, if you are a visual learner.
Thanks, I wanted them for two reasons, help me save money and help me make money. Feed some, save some with perferable traits for breeding, and then also sell some to herp keepers or any other keeper of animal who needs these animals. I guess every one needs some extra pocket change these days. And will the beetles eat the eggs and what not? I know crickets have a problem with eating their young, just not sure about other insects.
The beetles and larval mealworms will eat the eggs; whether this is intentional or accidental by consuming the substrate is unknown... but generally they produce such mass quanitites of eggs that it isn't a big deal unless you are really trying to maximize production. To put it in perspective - say you purchase 1000 mealworms (which can be quite cheaply done online nowadays). Assuming 500 become female beetles, and each beetle can lay at least 250 eggs (I've seen figures ranging from 250-500), you are looking at a possible capacity to produce 125,000 eggs. So really, even if the consumption of eggs accidentally by larvae and beetle results in only a fraction of those hatching, you can still produce tons of mealworms. Even if only 10 eggs survive from a female's batch, you are literally multiplying the founding colony by a factor of 5... and this number can continue to increase with each cycle of breeding as long as conditions are right and you have the adequate supplies to care for them diligently.
I put about 80 mealworms in a small tub with an inch or two deep of oat meal substrate. I also have two apple slices cut into 1/4 of its normal size for moisture, will this work? Waxworms I am considering careful breeding since I dont want to have an over population, so what should I do to prevent having too much waxworms?
I find that carrots is the best thing for mealworms as far as them eating them or picking them over other foods which contain liquid. You can not go wrong with less more so than more. I say this because if substrate gets moist due to apple,etc you will get potatoe mites . I can not keep cultures in garage due to humidity in air because this has caused mites , that is how dry they need it. As dry as possible with little bit of carrot, potatoe is the way to go and even than I dry the food with paper towel after washing it before adding it to the culture Are they eating the apple? I bred waxworms 2 yrs ago and got lots of babies so nothing you can do about that but easy to give them away, feed wild birds, etc. I am going to do it again when night temps in my garage stay at 80 plus. I did not use glycerin as instructions stated and culture did great . Warmth is the key while mealworms any house temp is fine
The waxworms by you are cheap. Here they are much more money and close to half if not more are dead thus I will not buy them.
yeah, they eat the apple. I have seen them on top of it (who knows why) and under it and you could see dents where they have been eating.
Are you keeping them outside? Could they have gotten too cold? If all of them turned black and died it's probably an environment issue... Did you put them in a fully sealed container? Or is it humid in where they are?
I keep them inside in the room my CWDs are in so it is about 80-85 degrees. I keep them next to a renuzit aroma (like an air wick but you dont need to plug it in). There isnt even a roof to their enclosure, but since I keep the humidity in the room so high, it could have been the humidity.
I also use renuzit in the kitchen. It might have been that. I have never had mealworms die with high humidity as far as all turning black and than the whole culture dieing but they have gotten mites that way which is why I no longer breed them in garage . Next culture you get keep in dry place and they will breed and thrive because in high humidity you are on the road to getting mites.
Welcome to the boards cadi = ) This is a pretty extensive write-up on roaches, but should provide you with all of the info you need: http://reptileboards.com/threads/how-to-keep-and-breed-roaches-extensive.64560/
