Growing mealworms

[water fun2]

Is it very difficult to grow meal worms for quails?
Thanks
Karen

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

I wouldn't think it very hard, no. I was able to set up my colony of darkling beetles/mealworms for $20.

$10 fishtank, $5 for a cup of mealworms from the store, $5 in bran bedding from winco. I've fed them old leftover food like apples, carrots, and cabbage. They're nocturnal, keeping them somewhere decently warm (room temp or so) and dark I believe is best.

They're really dumb beetles, easy to care for though! I have egg cartons (cut up in a few shapes n sizes) in my tank and they love to hide on and in them, occasionally a mealworm will eat a hole through one. The hardest part about raising mealworms is how long it can take from buying the mealworms to them becoming beetles and having little mealworms of their own, it took I think around 6 months from when I first bought my mealworms to when I had seen a baby mealworm?

I dont know how many you'd need for your quails, I guess it would depend on how many quail are being fed how many mealworms how often, although once you get a little mealworm colony going it's easy to manage and produces decently : D

 

[Phneyda]

@Northwest_Wannabe Can you take pictures of your setup? I bought 1k mealworms and they didn’t even last a month between the quail and our leopard gecko. I’m thinking breeding would be easier, but I didn’t want to buy, set up and monitor a tiered system. I have several tanks (5, 10, 15L, 20,, and a cracked 30) hanging around, but couldn’t find much info on a tank set up online. Pics of your setup and tips would be much appreciated! For example, what tank size do you think would work best? What kind of top do you use? How often do you clean the tank? Thanks!

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

I have 500 darkling beetles and hardly any worms. Between constantly changing the bedding and dealing with grain mites, I'm ready to give up. I may try a layered system, or if you are having success -- whatever it is you're doing.

 

[FloorCandy]

@Northwest_Wannabe Can you take pictures of your setup? I bought 1k mealworms and they didn’t even last a month between the quail and our leopard gecko. I’m thinking breeding would be easier, but I didn’t want to buy, set up and monitor a tiered system. I have several tanks (5, 10, 15L, 20,, and a cracked 30) hanging around, but couldn’t find much info on a tank set up online. Pics of your setup and tips would be much appreciated! For example, what tank size do you think would work best? What kind of top do you use? How often do you clean the tank? Thanks!

When I worked at a pet shop long ago, we kept a colony, I didn’t set it up, it had been there forever, but we just put a potato or apple half in once a week, removed anything from previous that was moldy or gross, and like once a month they dumped some oats and fresh chips in, it seemed to work out well, we always had plenty.

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

@Northwest_Wannabe Can you take pictures of your setup? I bought 1k mealworms and they didn’t even last a month between the quail and our leopard gecko. I’m thinking breeding would be easier, but I didn’t want to buy, set up and monitor a tiered system. I have several tanks (5, 10, 15L, 20,, and a cracked 30) hanging around, but couldn’t find much info on a tank set up online. Pics of your setup and tips would be much appreciated! For example, what tank size do you think would work best? What kind of top do you use? How often do you clean the tank? Thanks!

Lemme start off by saying I probably don't take the best care of these guys nor have an optional setup ^^" They all live together so I probably have loss from the beetles eating eggs or such, but I'm not relying on them for anything so I don't mind. I clean the tank when it smells too much, from what I've heard mealworm tanks will generally have a faint ammonia smell; the tank I have is right next to my desk so when I can smell it like 2-3 feet away I usually do a little cleaning, or when there's a lot of castings or sheds on top!

I've only been doing this less than a year so I can't say I have perfected anything or necessary like do it correctly, all I know is I have worms and beetles who wiggle around and eat apples haha


I use a ten gallon fish tank we had leftover ($10 on sale at petco, $15 usually). They're in the dark underneath a table by my desk (not where shown in the picture, I put them in the light for ease of viewing) I've got a few egg cartons although I'd like to add some more, they love to sit underneath and on top of them! 1-2 inches (or more) of the bran bedding (I need to refill but I'm waiting on a WinCo trip!) And the lid I have on it is for a lizard tank, it's metal wire with a little 'door' on it that doesn't open anymore, it's also got some holes in the wire and I've got a book I set on top so people don't worry about these non-flying dumb-as-rocks beetles somehow escaping haha


This is underneath one of my egg carton bits, they just hang out under there making it fairly easy (if you're fast!) To catch them!

We're upgrading my betta sometime soon from a 10 gallon to a 20 long so I'll get a second 10 gallon fishtank to expand the colony. I buy "bulk" bran from WinCo for something crazy like .50c a pound and then I just add leftover vegetables, apples that don't taste good, wilted cabbage, they didn't like the strawberry I tried to feed them but it did make the cage smell good haha! But apples, carrots and cabbage have been mines main diet, I went from 10-20 leftover worms to 10-20 beetles to uncountable worms and probably 20-30 adult beetles now. I've only fed probably 2-3 cups of worms over the whole time I've had them, at the beginning I didn't wanna impact the colony too much, but now that I've got what I feel is plentiful I'm less worried about that, although I'm gonna slow down and start that second colony before feeding any more to the chickens!

I hope this somehow helped?

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

I have 500 darkling beetles and hardly any worms. Between constantly changing the bedding and dealing with grain mites, I'm ready to give up. I may try a layered system.

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

I have 500 darkling beetles and hardly any worms. Between constantly changing the bedding and dealing with grain mites, I'm ready to give up. I may try a layered system.

Don't give up! I've never dealt with grain mites, is that from the grain or from the mealworms? What makes you constantly change the bedding out if you don't mind me asking? :0

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

grain mites!!!
https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef629

They usually ship with grains, but are activated by moisture. Too little, and the worms won't live. Too much, and mites appear. Living in the tropics doesn't help -- our ambient humidity is always high.

 

[Phneyda]

@Northwest_Wannabe thanks so much for sharing! I may try your setup out to get the worms out of my fridge and multiplying. I grew broccoli in our garden this year right up to Christmas and found the the mealworms really enjoyed the stalks. I cut the stalks down the middle and placed them in the containers inside-side down (hope that makes sense). It was a nice way to use something I’d usually throw in the compost.