Breeding mealworms and superworms? Other feeders?

[kwengkynator]

Is it possible to breed these worms? What are the requirements and the set up to successfully breed them.

I have a thriving dubia roach colony which I'm very happy with. Made me think that I should also have a colony for my mealworms and superworms. Currently I have about 500 mealworms and 100 superworms. I just keep them in a small container in the fridge. I thought if breeding them wont be a hassle I should just breed them.

Would they be better for my chams if they are breed in my apartment and fed good gutload, instead of just keeping them dormant in the fridge?

What other insects can I breed? I wasn't much a fan of crickets. They smell and loud and have the tendency to eat your cham, so they are out. I wont be housing them any time in the near future.

Any suggestions?

 

[nick barta]

Super worms move faster to get the chameleons attention, and have a softer exoskeleton, which makes them a better choice than mealworms. Supers will die in the refrigerator, keep them in the chameleon room, in oats or bran for food, and hydrate with water crystals, or fruits and veggies. Use the search feature here and put in "breeding super worms", there are lots of threads on breeding supers.Supers do require isolation of the adult worm to pupate, and the wait for the next generation is months.

Other feeders you can breed are silk worms, horn worms, other roaches, wax worms, stick insects, and Isopods (AKA pill bugs, roly-polies). This will give you a good start!

CHEERS!

Nick

 

[Kiwiflage]

Supers are more nutritious than meal worms. And pretty easy to breed. A lot of helpful YouTube videos actually. Silkworms are great(possibly even the best) nutritionally. Despite their reputation, they're pretty easy to maintain if y keep an eye on them. I've tried hornworms which are a bit too much work for me personally, I'd rather buy them. Stick bugs are my next endeavor but they seem relatively simple to care for. Stick with the dubia for sure, they're super low maintenance and super hardy.

 

[little leaf]

if you look in this https://www.chameleonforums.com/chameleon-food-sale/ there are many feeder items and Nick sells alot of them - he had all the yummy weird food chams love

breeding your own feeders is great- and I bet you, once you get started, you will end up like many of us - who started with just dubia , and now have a ROOM full of feeders I now breed over 23 dif/ feeder items , and as odd as it sounds, I do enjoy the bugs too many of the bugs can be kept together too - like Green banana roaches, and Isopods in the same bin, your dubia and "cleaner crew" beetles ( I feed the larva of those ) both kinds of snails in one - ect ....

 

[kwengkynator]

Super worms move faster to get the chameleons attention, and have a softer exoskeleton, which makes them a better choice than mealworms. Supers will die in the refrigerator, keep them in the chameleon room, in oats or bran for food, and hydrate with water crystals, or fruits and veggies. Use the search feature here and put in "breeding super worms", there are lots of threads on breeding supers.Supers do require isolation of the adult worm to pupate, and the wait for the next generation is months.


Other feeders you can breed are silk worms, horn worms, other roaches, wax worms, stick insects, and Isopods (AKA pill bugs, roly-polies). This will give you a good start!


CHEERS!

Nick

I see I think I know what my next feeder to breed then. Any ideas where I can get the best set for supers? I have a few from petsmart, they seem to be very lively. The stick insect seems interesting, Ive heard its also a daunting task though.

Supers are more nutritious than meal worms. And pretty easy to breed. A lot of helpful YouTube videos actually. Silkworms are great(possibly even the best) nutritionally. Despite their reputation, they're pretty easy to maintain if y keep an eye on them. I've tried hornworms which are a bit too much work for me personally, I'd rather buy them. Stick bugs are my next endeavor but they seem relatively simple to care for. Stick with the dubia for sure, they're super low maintenance and super hardy.

I'm loving my dubia colony right now. They are hardy and so much easy to breed! I have no idea why they dont have them in pet stores. WAY WAY WAY better than crickets!

if you look in this https://www.chameleonforums.com/chameleon-food-sale/ there are many feeder items and Nick sells alot of them - he had all the yummy weird food chams love

breeding your own feeders is great- and I bet you, once you get started, you will end up like many of us - who started with just dubia , and now have a ROOM full of feeders I now breed over 23 dif/ feeder items , and as odd as it sounds, I do enjoy the bugs too many of the bugs can be kept together too - like Green banana roaches, and Isopods in the same bin, your dubia and "cleaner crew" beetles ( I feed the larva of those ) both kinds of snails in one - ect ....

WOW 23 feeders! That is self is quiet a task I bet. Im heading over that link right now to check things out. I really wanna see my chams reaction to stick insect

 

[eat2muchrice]

I don't think you are suppose to keep superworms in the fridge. Of the two I would say breed supers and like everyone has mentioned search or watch video's on youtube. First you take adult superworms and seperate each one in little bins, stored at room temp in a dark place and then they turn into bettles ready for breeding.

 

[fluxlizard]

I kinda feel like mealworms get a bad rap.

If we take a look at the nutritional analysis provided by grubco for their insects here http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm we can make a few interesting observations.

Firstly, that nutritional content in nearly all areas appears to be in the middle between crickets and superworms. For most figures (moisture, protein, calcium and phosphorous) crickets scored the highest, then mealworms, with superworms scoring lowest. For fat, superworms scored the highest, then mealworms, then crickets. For fiber, superworms were significantly higher than crickets, and mealworms scored the least.

Diet of the insect will significantly effect its nutritional quality and content.

We can see a few other sources for comparison on this site here http://chamownersweb.net/insects/nutritional_values.htm

Here we can see grubco's analysis along with analysis by argentina birds.com and reptile rooms forum which are not in agreement with some of the figures provided by grubco, presumably because the insects analyzed were fed a different diet. Also provided are a few different analysis, such as calories and mineral content and carbohydrates.

Interestingly in these analysis, sometimes mealworms scored very close to superworms, and sometimes slightly lower, in disagreement with grubco's analysis. Again, most often they scored in between superworms and crickets.

From these scores, it becomes very obvious that they do not have "little nutritional value". Even the claim that their exoskeleton amount is less than supers in proportion to the worm becomes a little "iffy" if I understand the figures (I am guessing figures relating to moisture content, ash, and phosphorous and possibly fiber would be relevant to the amount of hard chitonous exoskeleton which would presumably have greater amounts of ash and phosphorous and fiber and less of moisture- yet mealworms are not scoring the way we might expect if this is correct and if their exoskeletons were a greater percentage of the insect compared to superworms).

Also in his book on the panther chameleon, ferguson outlines his methods for keeping and breeding chameleons over multiple generations in his lab, and explains that he selected mealworms in addition to crickets because he found that when fed the exact same diet, the analysis done on his insects had mealworms scoring higher than crickets for calcium content, so he decided to use both insects for his chameleon diet.

Sure if you raise them on wheat bran or oatmeal they are probably going to score similar to grubco's analysis. Which is still OK- nutritional quality will be somewhere between a cricket and a superworm.

But I don't feed my mealies that way. They can be fed any dry stuff you would feed to crickets or roaches and they will breed and thrive in it. Plus a bit of fresh veggies (small bit that is gone in a day or so or you will end up with dust mites). When fed this way, they should have higher calcium content than crickets fed the same diet, if ferguson's analysis (professionally done) was correct.

At the very least they can be fed whole wheat flour instead of wheat bran- bran has much of the nutritional content removed compared to flour.

Mealworms are not useless, they are the easiest insect to breed, large scale breeding can be done in small enclosures (I produce several thousand per week in small tubs only a foot or so wide and a bit longer and perhaps 6" deep). Their nutritional analysis has been shown to be midway between two commonly considered useful feeders (crickets and superworms) and can be further enhanced by feeding a high quality diet rather than oats or bran.

I've used them for many years as one part of a varied diet (usually I offer 1 feeding of mealworms or 2 feedings very occasionally for lizards that have a daily insect feeding, per week).

edit- another link that is interesting reading with more in-depth analysis of many species of insect. Mealworms appear to outscore superworms most of the time on this analysis, but maybe they were fed very differently and the supers were not as well fed.

http://www.organicvaluerecovery.com/studies/studies_nutrient_content_of_insects.htm

Can we please stop repeating the notion that mealworms are poor nutritionally?

Or show me how my conclusions are wrong with something other than anecdotes?

 

[nick barta]

Super worms from Petsmart are fine for starting a breeding colony, for that matter, fine for feeding off, once you gut-load them.

CHEERS!

Nick

 

[kwengkynator]

I kinda feel like mealworms get a bad rap.

If we take a look at the nutritional analysis provided by grubco for their insects here http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm we can make a few interesting observations.

Firstly, that nutritional content in nearly all areas appears to be in the middle between crickets and superworms. For most figures (moisture, protein, calcium and phosphorous) crickets scored the highest, then mealworms, with superworms scoring lowest. For fat, superworms scored the highest, then mealworms, then crickets. For fiber, superworms were significantly higher than crickets, and mealworms scored the least.

Diet of the insect will significantly effect its nutritional quality and content.

We can see a few other sources for comparison on this site here http://chamownersweb.net/insects/nutritional_values.htm

Here we can see grubco's analysis along with analysis by argentina birds.com and reptile rooms forum which are not in agreement with some of the figures provided by grubco, presumably because the insects analyzed were fed a different diet. Also provided are a few different analysis, such as calories and mineral content and carbohydrates.

Interestingly in these analysis, sometimes mealworms scored very close to superworms, and sometimes slightly lower, in disagreement with grubco's analysis. Again, most often they scored in between superworms and crickets.

From these scores, it becomes very obvious that they do not have "little nutritional value". Even the claim that their exoskeleton amount is less than supers in proportion to the worm becomes a little "iffy" if I understand the figures (I am guessing figures relating to moisture content, ash, and phosphorous and possibly fiber would be relevant to the amount of hard chitonous exoskeleton which would presumably have greater amounts of ash and phosphorous and fiber and less of moisture- yet mealworms are not scoring the way we might expect if this is correct and if their exoskeletons were a greater percentage of the insect compared to superworms).

Also in his book on the panther chameleon, ferguson outlines his methods for keeping and breeding chameleons over multiple generations in his lab, and explains that he selected mealworms in addition to crickets because he found that when fed the exact same diet, the analysis done on his insects had mealworms scoring higher than crickets for calcium content, so he decided to use both insects for his chameleon diet.

Sure if you raise them on wheat bran or oatmeal they are probably going to score similar to grubco's analysis. Which is still OK- nutritional quality will be somewhere between a cricket and a superworm.

But I don't feed my mealies that way. They can be fed any dry stuff you would feed to crickets or roaches and they will breed and thrive in it. Plus a bit of fresh veggies (small bit that is gone in a day or so or you will end up with dust mites). When fed this way, they should have higher calcium content than crickets fed the same diet, if ferguson's analysis (professionally done) was correct.

At the very least they can be fed whole wheat flour instead of wheat bran- bran has much of the nutritional content removed compared to flour.

Mealworms are not useless, they are the easiest insect to breed, large scale breeding can be done in small enclosures (I produce several thousand per week in small tubs only a foot or so wide and a bit longer and perhaps 6" deep). Their nutritional analysis has been shown to be midway between two commonly considered useful feeders (crickets and superworms) and can be further enhanced by feeding a high quality diet rather than oats or bran.

I've used them for many years as one part of a varied diet (usually I offer 1 feeding of mealworms or 2 feedings very occasionally for lizards that have a daily insect feeding, per week).

edit- another link that is interesting reading with more in-depth analysis of many species of insect. Mealworms appear to outscore superworms most of the time on this analysis, but maybe they were fed very differently and the supers were not as well fed.

http://www.organicvaluerecovery.com/studies/studies_nutrient_content_of_insects.htm

Can we please stop repeating the notion that mealworms are poor nutritionally?

Or show me how my conclusions are wrong with something other than anecdotes?

DAMN IT!! Now I feel bad for tossing away 500 mealworms! I was planning on breeding them I already had quite a few pupate. Also how about the word about them giving a higher chance of impaction due to their harder exoskeleton?

Now I feel like I wasted some good feeders. Dang it! Good to know. Great read btw! Now Im gonna have to start from scratch. I might work on Super, mealworms and dubia roaches as my main feeders and just have a bulk order of reptiworms as treats.

THANKS!

 

[Mike Fisher]

Can we please stop repeating the notion that mealworms are poor nutritionally?

Or show me how my conclusions are wrong with something other than anecdotes?

I agree with this. The only issue I've had was getting calcium to stick to them. I've seen a lot of published material, but in practice I have not had a problem. I had one chameleon that would starve to death before eating anything else. I gave up and just fed him what he wanted, which was superworms. For years all he ever ate was superworms and he lived a long healthy life. Go figure.

 

[fluxlizard]

how about the word about them giving a higher chance of impaction due to their harder exoskeleton?

For healthy lizards, I just don't believe this would ever happen. I've never seen it happen with mine. The worst I've seen is a sick or empty lizards (nothing in gut, as can happen if not fed for several days or fresh out of hibernation) throw them back up after gorging on them. For such lizards, it is better to offer a meal of something else first, or in a pinch if nothing else is available, to only offer a few at first, until the digestive system gets going. For empty lizards, offering a few and not allowing them to gorge, will prevent this until the digestive system gets going again.

 

[kwengkynator]

For healthy lizards, I just don't believe this would ever happen. I've never seen it happen with mine. The worst I've seen is a sick or empty lizards (nothing in gut, as can happen if not fed for several days or fresh out of hibernation) throw them back up after gorging on them. For such lizards, it is better to offer a meal of something else first, or in a pinch if nothing else is available, to only offer a few at first, until the digestive system gets going. For empty lizards, offering a few and not allowing them to gorge, will prevent this until the digestive system gets going again.

Interesting! I learn something new everyday. Thanks for the info. New working on plans to breed Supers, meal worms and maybe a few more other feeder. Looking into maybe some other soft bodies feeders or anything else. Variety is always nice.