mealworm colony questions

[wontbme]

so i bought like 100 mealworms and fed about 50% of them off to my cham. and i decided to let them breed for fun, and just to see how big the colony will grow.
so i have a few questions
i currently have two beetles, anyway of telling male from female?
how long, from birth, do mealworms take to turn into beetles?

how many mealworms are reccomended to begin a colony?

im thinking of buying like 3000 mealworms because i'd like to see them do their job vs food and what-not... is it too much?
could they live in a 50 gal tank? (reptile tank)
or should i get 500 mini worms from petco?

 

[DavidBuchan]

How many chams you got? If its just one then you have enough to start a small colony now. I'm not sure about sexing but I get 10-20 beetles and move them to their own tub for a week. Leave some calcium flakes to lay in and be like a substrate, feed leaves to the beetles. Not sure exactly how long from birth they get to be beetles but they live for ages as beetles. Move them on to a new tub every week or two until you have 10 boxes if you like, they can potentially make a lot of babies. You don't need a lot of worms for one cham, but a constant stream will keep some at the right size for you at all times. I don't keep a constant stream, sometimes I have to wait a week before they are ready to be eeaten. This is not a problem though, as too many mealworms is not a good thing........

 

[wontbme]

How many chams you got? If its just one then you have enough to start a small colony now. I'm not sure about sexing but I get 10-20 beetles and move them to their own tub for a week. Leave some calcium flakes to lay in and be like a substrate, feed leaves to the beetles. Not sure exactly how long from birth they get to be beetles but they live for ages as beetles. Move them on to a new tub every week or two until you have 10 boxes if you like, they can potentially make a lot of babies. You don't need a lot of worms for one cham, but a constant stream will keep some at the right size for you at all times. I don't keep a constant stream, sometimes I have to wait a week before they are ready to be eeaten. This is not a problem though, as too many mealworms is not a good thing........

i dont plan on making them feeders really, just treats

im doing it for fun, not really for feeding. i have one cham, i want to see the worms expand you know?

 

[DavidBuchan]

i dont plan on making them feeders really, just treats

im doing it for fun, not really for feeding. i have one cham, i want to see the worms expand you know?

In that case mate, how much room you got? Leave those beetles in a warm place with lots of food and no predators for a while - making sure you keep it clean of mould, bacteria and the dreaded mites.
Population explosion shall ensue..........a few weeks before there are tiny almost invisible mealworms, and lots of them.........

 

[sandrachameleon]

so i bought like 100 mealworms and fed about 50% of them off to my cham. and i decided to let them breed for fun, and just to see how big the colony will grow.
so i have a few questions
i currently have two beetles, anyway of telling male from female?
how long, from birth, do mealworms take to turn into beetles?

how many mealworms are reccomended to begin a colony?

im thinking of buying like 3000 mealworms because i'd like to see them do their job vs food and what-not... is it too much?
could they live in a 50 gal tank? (reptile tank)
or should i get 500 mini worms from petco?

I have found it near impossible to tell male from female beetle. But so long as you have at least ten beetles, it doent matter, since its very likely at least a few will be female. My mealworm colony has usually 40 or 50 beetles, but really 10 is sufficient. The more beetles, the more eggs, more more eventual larva to feed off. If only using as a treat (good call) and only feeding one animal, you wont need a large colony.

Any container they cant climb (smooth sides) will do. I use plastic buckets.
As a substrate for bettles and worms i use this: https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/443-superworm-substrate-gutload-one.html
Fruit and veg provide the hydration (and act as gutload).

Separate the beetles from the substrate (where the eggs will become tiny larva) every few weeks into a new container with fresh substrate.

You may find these link useful/interesting:
http://chameleonnews.com/03OctWells.html
http://www.sialis.org/raisingmealworms.htm
http://www.javafinch.co.uk/feed/live/live.html

 

[sandrachameleon]

You could give this a try (though I dont think its worth the effort)

Examine the posterior sternites. Turn the adult beetle so the belly (ventral side) is facing you. Using a hand magnifying glass or low-powered microscope, counting from head to tail, examine the separation between the third, fourth, and fifth sternites (segments). In females, the separation between these is minimal and the fifth sternite is pointed; males have markedly separated sternites and the fifth is rounded.

From: How to Determine the Gender of Mealworms | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_6880338_determine-gender-mealworms.html#ixzz1Rx6H2iqA​

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[seanUTD]

IMHO you will spend more on the supplies and food for the mealworms than would be worth the amount you can feed a cham... I tried this and honestly it was a waste... JMHO

 

[sandrachameleon]

really? It costs almost nothing for supplies and even less for time to raise them. For me, always having several types of bugs on hand (never reliant on pet stores, online stores, shipping companies etc) is easily worth the minimal investment.

 

[jdog1027]

Everybody seems to frown on feeding mealworms with regularity, but I practicly raised a litter of Jacksons babies on mealworm larva because the Jacksons were completely unexpected. Mealworms were all I had at the time that were appropriately sized. As far as raising them, they are almost no work at all. Just throw in some apple and/or carrot pieces every other day or so. And you don't need 3000 to start a colony. I bought 2 cups of 50 from Petsmart about a year and a half ago, and I had several hundred if not more within about 6-8 months.

 

[seanUTD]

really? It costs almost nothing for supplies and even less for time to raise them. For me, always having several types of bugs on hand (never reliant on pet stores, online stores, shipping companies etc) is easily worth the minimal investment.

Having them on hand is different than starting a colony... Think of it this way, you'll need wheat bran or oats, vegetables for hydration, rearing container... When they last FOREVER in just buying the cups from the store... Like I said IMHO.... To substantiate myself I keep colonies of dubias, crix, supers, and silkworms... I BUY meals, waxs, horns... Things that are good snacks

 

[sandrachameleon]

For me, having them on hand means starting a colony. Which I have done, with many bugs.

Mealworms are very inexpensive to keep a small colonly (or large colony) of. Bran (and my other substrate ingredients, like alfalfa) is extraordinarily cheap. Vegetable scraps are free (assuming you yourself eat fruits and vegetables from time to time, using what you dont eat (the bit of apple near the stem, the top of the carrot) merely reduces waste. Dandelion is free. Clover is free. I grow plenty of vegetables so that's essentially free. You dont need a special container, just any old left over plastic container will do. I think one of mine once held yogurt, another came with my takeaway chinese hot and sour soup. free.

Of all the bugs I breed, mealworms are the easiest and probably the cheapest. Breeding them takes no effort. Buying them means going to a store, relying on the store to have them, not knowing what the store or factory breeder fed them (likely something awful like chicken feed and corn)...

Keeping crickets is much more work, stink, make noise, take way more space and are more expensive to breed than mealworms. Crickets are the ones I choose to buy. They are inexpensive to buy, even if just buying them in small numbers a couple times a month.
Keeping dubia is more work and more expensive than mealworms too. Though I breed these also.
Keeping silkworms isnt difficult, but it is WAY more work than mealworms. Ive just stopped breeding these for awhile.
Even the stick bugs and terrestrial isopods and superworms colonies I have are more work than mealworms. So in terms of easy and cheap and space savings, mealworms are a good one for keeping a colony of, in my books.