Feeder Farm Updates

This is mainly about my Mealworm farm. I am looking into roaches and superworms but I'm not so sure how other people in my home will feel about the roaches so I'll have to explain to them that I won't let them get out and they can't infest the house.

I've had a mealworm colony of at least 1400 mealworms. The people I order them from threw in a extra 300 and on top of the 1000 I paid for, and added in free babies and I already had 100. They have been eating on oats and carrots.

I have been moving all the pupa into one bin and just before I left for the night I looked in the bin and saw this little guy.



I feel a little sense of accomplishment.

Nice! I suggest separating the beetles away from the pupae... the beetles tend to find the pupae somewhat tasty... I started a mealworm colony of my own a while back...found that little fact out the hard way. Lost about 20-30 pupae from the darn beetles.

Keep us posted on your progress...it's quite the waiting game and it can be a pain in the butt getting started. Good luck!

THey generally don't eat the oats... oats is bedding.

Plenty of people have suggested oats and said that they eat it as well which has to be true because if I sift through one of my bins that have only mealworms in it, there are smaller pieces of oats at the bottom like they have been eating it and their poo which I can't think of what the name of is.

Pretty!
I just ordered my colony on Sunday.

Mealworms eat the oats, im not sure if the beetles do. But they need about an inch of substrate to hide their eggs in. They will eat all the eggs if your not careful. Which i think may of just happened to me o_O

I meant that the mealworms do eat the oats. I don't know about the beetles because I only still have the first one so there's way I'd know if they ate any.

Yea, i haven't seen the super beetles or the meal worm beetles eating the oats ever. So be sure to stack their cages with veggies.

That smaller dusty crud you're finding at the bottom of the keeper is called frass. It's their poop.

Yes, and there is also smaller oat pieces. They have a different color than the frass.

I just checked a minute ago and there is smaller oat piece all throughout it. I compared it to the oats that have not been used yet and there aren't small pieces in that and they are both the same color.

Congrats on your lil beetles

Mealworm colonies seem fairly easy, same as dubia roaches. Only one that took a long time me was superworms. It took 5-6 months before I could barely see lil tiny superworms crawling around.

Mardy wrote:Congrats on your lil beetles

Mealworm colonies seem fairly easy, same as dubia roaches. Only one that took a long time me was superworms. It took 5-6 months before I could barely see lil tiny superworms crawling around.

Did you separate the ones that you wanted to turn into pupa? I think superworms pupate better when they are by themselves without food.

Definitely did, I was counting the time from when they're in pupae form > beetle > when I actually saw small tiny, and I do mean tiny, lil worms heh.

Mardy wrote:Definitely did, I was counting the time from when they're in pupae form > beetle > when I actually saw small tiny, and I do mean tiny, lil worms heh.

Wow, that really is a long time xD

I didn't make enough pupaes though so I'm sure I didn't do it as well as I could have. Plus there's like no way to tell their sex so I have no idea how long they went without the right sex to produce eggs lol.

I've read that each female should lay around 500 eggs, would you say that's a fair estimate? Saying if about 50% of your beetles were female.

There are about ten beetles now. They started eating some pupa, which I knew would happen but now I got it sorted out. I have a shoe box with pill bottles in it and a pupa to each pill bottle. When the pupa turn into beetles, I'll put them in with the rest of them. I have way more pupa than pill bottles but I don't feel that it is necessary for my current use to save all of the pupa because I don't need that many mealworms. I will pull out any pupa that have been eaten and throw them away. If the pupa that are in with the beetles, turn into beetles, so be it. If they get eaten, again, so be it.

After the beetles mate and I start seeing mealworms I'll move all the beetles into another bin.

Smiley wrote:I've read that each female should lay around 500 eggs, would you say that's a fair estimate? Saying if about 50% of your beetles were female.

Yes, I've read that too. I could have quiet a bit if I wanted to.