My mealworm community! (Pics)

[viktoriacl]

That must be in a typical enviornment for them because I have only had mine a month or two at the most and we are well into pupa stage with a few. I'll let you know when we move into the next stage. It's a cheap hobby anyway. Lol I'm doing much better at this than I am at the whole egg thing! My EE's are still holding out at 20 some odd weeks.

 

[chicksrcool]

Oh, looks interesting. I bought them some dried ones and they went cRaZy for them!

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

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Like you said, it can take AS LONG as one year. When kept at 76 degrees (The preferred temp) it usually takes 3-5 months from egg to reproducing beetles. I don't like petco/petsmart mealworms. There's usually 40 live mealworms or less in a tub of 50, and most are usually starving and die once unfridgerated. Grubco has good mealworms. Sunshine mealworms has really nice prices and healthy worms, nyworms is good, and there's countless others. I would get the 1,000 count, feed 500 over a period of time for your chickens, and save the other 500 for breeding. Chicken layer makes great mealworm bedding, 25% flock raiser makes the worms grow as if their on steroids.

 

[3chimama]

Thank you for the info!
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[laturcotte1]

You can get 10,000 of them on line at Duncraft if your serious about breeding, that's how I started. Put them in a large cooler in the garage where it's cool. Bedding was oatmeal and bran. For food cut a potato in half and lay on top they love it, lettuce too. For water I'd wet a papertowel and just lay on the top for a couple hours every other day but the potato and lettuce have a lot of water. As they went through their change first the "alien" stage, I'd remove them into a plastic container I purchased at Walmart with a cover and handle. As soon as they turned to beetles I'd put them into another container, punch holes in top, put a couple very small branches for them to crawl on. These beetles like everything including meat, papertowel for water. The beetles breed, soon you will find tiny strands of hair under the bedding; baby worms! Soon the beetles will die and youre left with worms. I did this for about 6 months and had so many containers around the house I had to stop. Warm weather will make them multiple like crazy cool slows them down.

If you get them from Duncraft theyare very hungry and thirsty so have their bedding ready and when you unpack them lay a couple pieces of lettuce on top and watch and listen to them eat, they will devour a leaf in a matter of minutes.