Chameleon Brothers
New Member
Just bought 1,000 meal worms. Was wondering what the best set-up likely is to keep them alive and well feed? Is a little bark on the bottom of a bucket okay?
Meal Worms
- Thread starter Chameleon Brothers
- Start date
fluxlizard
Avid Member
mealworms don't need bark.
Just use their food for their substrate.
Their food can be anything you would feed to crickets, but far less fruits and veggies.
Just use their food for their substrate.
Their food can be anything you would feed to crickets, but far less fruits and veggies.
Chameleon Brothers
New Member
Specifics
If they aren't fruits and vegetables would you recommend oats? Maybe you can give me a few more specifics?
If they aren't fruits and vegetables would you recommend oats? Maybe you can give me a few more specifics?
Dee weekly
New Member
I started with 1000 meal worms about 3 months ago I started using oatmeal but I found that it molded quickly so I switch to wheat bran, you can get it at a whole food store.. Much better then oatmel rarely molds an now I have over 10,000 meal worms just a guess good look I throw carrots patatoes squash inn from time to time as a water source .. Good luck
fluxlizard
Avid Member
Wheat bran really isn't all that great nutritionally by itself as a foodsource.
You can use any of a zillion dry ingredients recommended for gutloading crickets, or cricket commercial food itself. I tend to use alfalfa meal as a base and add all kinds of things, including whole wheat flour and spirulina to that base. Whole wheat flour has more nutritional benefit than bran, and is easier to source (any grocer). Use the search feature here on the forums and you will find links to lots of recipes for cricket or roach chow- any of those things can be used.
As far as mold- if there is mold, there is too much fresh fruits and veggies being fed. Even bran will mold. You have to carefully control moisture with mealworms or you will end up with mold or dust mites. The way I do it is to feed just enough fruits or veggies that they dissappear in a day or so. I don't feed more until it is dehydrated or gone. You can start to get a good idea from using carrots- they aren't so much moisture and you can start to get a feel for how fast an amount of this sort of food dissappears. Then you can experiment with fruits and leafy greens, beans, etc. Just keep in mind that with mealworms, a little too dry is better than a little too moist...
You can use any of a zillion dry ingredients recommended for gutloading crickets, or cricket commercial food itself. I tend to use alfalfa meal as a base and add all kinds of things, including whole wheat flour and spirulina to that base. Whole wheat flour has more nutritional benefit than bran, and is easier to source (any grocer). Use the search feature here on the forums and you will find links to lots of recipes for cricket or roach chow- any of those things can be used.
As far as mold- if there is mold, there is too much fresh fruits and veggies being fed. Even bran will mold. You have to carefully control moisture with mealworms or you will end up with mold or dust mites. The way I do it is to feed just enough fruits or veggies that they dissappear in a day or so. I don't feed more until it is dehydrated or gone. You can start to get a good idea from using carrots- they aren't so much moisture and you can start to get a feel for how fast an amount of this sort of food dissappears. Then you can experiment with fruits and leafy greens, beans, etc. Just keep in mind that with mealworms, a little too dry is better than a little too moist...
Chameleon Brothers
New Member
Thanks
That's great advice. Only issue I have is that I thought leafy greens are bad because they bind with calcium which prevents it from being absorbed by the chameleons. Is that correct?
That's great advice. Only issue I have is that I thought leafy greens are bad because they bind with calcium which prevents it from being absorbed by the chameleons. Is that correct?
fluxlizard
Avid Member
No.
Some leafy greens like spinach have calcium binding agents.
Other greens like cabbage have goiterogens.
But most leafy greens have bad things in them as well as good (for some reason goiterogens and calcium binders have gotten the bad press, but they aren't the only bad things out there- a good place to get an intro to this idea is in the bearded dragon handbook by AVS), and the good outweighs the bad, unless you choose one thing and feed it over and over again at the near exclusion of other greens, and then you can have problems.
As far as calcium binders- the effect is very minimal, you would need a lot going directly into your lizard. And they don't magically absorb 100% of all the usable calcium a lizard takes in either- they bind with as much as they can and then they are "full" and cannot bind to more. So if you are doing something as simple as dusting your feeder with calcium, you will more than offset the calcium binding power of any greens you feed to the feeder.
Plus leafy greens are going to be a very very small percentage of mealworm diet anyway.
That said, if you really want to be careful you can do what many others do who do not understand that nutrition is a matter of looking at food intake as a whole rather than parts, and you can treat each potential leafy green as if it were going to be the entire diet, and judge it as good or bad and avoid the "bad" ones altogether. You will miss out on the benefits of those specific greens as well, but many people do this. If you want to go that route, I suggest you check out any of the excellent resources online with ideas for feeding iguanas.
Or you can just get an idea of what the calcium binders and goiterogens are and just go easy on those- offer occasionally but not every day. That is pretty much the route I have taken with my lizards. I'm a big believer in variety.
Some leafy greens like spinach have calcium binding agents.
Other greens like cabbage have goiterogens.
But most leafy greens have bad things in them as well as good (for some reason goiterogens and calcium binders have gotten the bad press, but they aren't the only bad things out there- a good place to get an intro to this idea is in the bearded dragon handbook by AVS), and the good outweighs the bad, unless you choose one thing and feed it over and over again at the near exclusion of other greens, and then you can have problems.
As far as calcium binders- the effect is very minimal, you would need a lot going directly into your lizard. And they don't magically absorb 100% of all the usable calcium a lizard takes in either- they bind with as much as they can and then they are "full" and cannot bind to more. So if you are doing something as simple as dusting your feeder with calcium, you will more than offset the calcium binding power of any greens you feed to the feeder.
Plus leafy greens are going to be a very very small percentage of mealworm diet anyway.
That said, if you really want to be careful you can do what many others do who do not understand that nutrition is a matter of looking at food intake as a whole rather than parts, and you can treat each potential leafy green as if it were going to be the entire diet, and judge it as good or bad and avoid the "bad" ones altogether. You will miss out on the benefits of those specific greens as well, but many people do this. If you want to go that route, I suggest you check out any of the excellent resources online with ideas for feeding iguanas.
Or you can just get an idea of what the calcium binders and goiterogens are and just go easy on those- offer occasionally but not every day. That is pretty much the route I have taken with my lizards. I'm a big believer in variety.
Last edited:
Chameleon Brothers
New Member
thanks
Thanks, I'll be sure to give them some dried food
Thanks, I'll be sure to give them some dried food
