Mealworms bedding from?

[sharlaxle]

Ok so I left some mealworms In a bin and sort of forgot them. Now I have a bin full of more mealworms. I need to get more bedding for them. I saw that most people use bran, so my question is where do you get it? I tried walmart, they didn't even know what bran was:/
Thank you for your suggestions.
Shark

 

[SaintJimmy]

get some plain oatmeal

 

[happiness]

Ok so I left some mealworms In a bin and sort of forgot them. Now I have a bin full of more mealworms. I need to get more bedding for them. I saw that most people use bran, so my question is where do you get it? I tried walmart, they didn't even know what bran was:/
Thank you for your suggestions.
Shark

At my walmart I saw wheat bran right next to the oatmeal. That's probably where you might find it. Though its a pretty small jar for about $4-5!! You get a lot more of oatmeal for a cheaper price.

 

[fluxlizard]

mix other good stuff in there for the sake of your lizards. Anything you would feed to crickets you can feed to mealworms...

 

[sharlaxle]

Perfect Ty everyone. I'll buy the oatmeal and just keep supplimenting with the veggies and fruit.
Sharl

 

[sandrachameleon]

I buy wheat bran, oats, barley, alfalfa etc from a place that sells feed for chickens, horses, goats, etc. = its MUCH less expensive than buying human-grade food.

 

[Dee weekly]

Food market

Try places like Hanford. Whole food market. Organic places like whole foods. I live in new hampshier n I get wheat bran about 2$ a pound.

 

[fluxlizard]

Just FYI- it doesn't have to be only the bran either. You can grow them in flour such as whole wheat flour. Whole wheat flour has the bran plus the endosperm and germ which have additional nutritional benefits that the bran alone does not have.

Also if you grind all the ingredients into a flour (coffee grinder can be used for this) it makes it really easy to sort the worms if you have a lot of lizards to feed. I just use a strainer and sift the flour through, leaving the worms and trash that needs to be thrown out behind. Even alfalfa pellets, dried flowers (hibiscus, callendula), dried vegetables and legumes can be ground into flour and put in the mix.

I'm with Sandra on where to shop- I get some of my stuff from feed stores or the local mill which is even cheaper than the feed stores. $2 a lb for wheat bran is really high- but maybe it's organic. A lot of non-organic grains are now GMO and I worry about their long term multigenerational effect on the genetics of my lizards (and the rest of us non-lizards too)...

 

[fluxlizard]

kind of messing around I found this which is interesting- oats vs wheat nutritional analysis (calories, vitamins, fat, minerals, amino acids, etc)

http://skipthepie.org/cereal-grains-and-pasta/wheat-flour-whole-grain/compared-to/oat-bran-raw/