Mealworms are widely used as feeder insects for birds, fish, reptiles, rodents, and other pet animals. If you have multiple pets that feed on mealworms, it makes sense to start breeding your own. Setting up your own mealworm farm is less expensive than you might think, and you can have it up and running in very little time.
Part 1 of 2: Setup
1Gather the supplies:
- Dry oatmeal.
- An organic source of moisture that is not likely to mold quickly. Carrots work best for this, but you can also use other fruits and vegetables such as sliced or chopped potatoes or apples.
- Three plastic containers with air-holes drilled in the tops.
- Several bits of cardboard in the form of egg cartons or used toilet paper rolls.
- Mealworms, also known as darkling beetle larva. Start with 1,000 of them.
2Pour a one inch/2.5 centimeter (1.0 in) layer of oats into the bottom of each plastic container. This serves as bedding and food for the mealworms in their various stages of development.
3Deposit some vegetable slices into each bin. You may use any kind of fruit or vegetable for this, such as celery, lettuce, potatoes, or apples. Carrot seems to take longer to develop mold than other fruits and vegetables. If you decide to use other moisture sources, be sure to replace them often.
4Pour the live mealworms into one of the containers. Some mealworm farmers also like to add a few slices of bread and some ground up cereal or dry dog food to the mix.
5Place a few scraps of cardboard material on top of the oats. These little creatures enjoy their darkness.
6Label the containers accordingly. One of them will be for mealworms (larva), one for pupa, and one for adult beetles.
7Seal the containers and place them in a warm, dark area. Warmth speeds up the life cycle process, so your mealworms will pupate faster if they are kept warm.
Part 2 of 2: Upkeep
1Maintain the containers periodically. Some farmers like to check things out daily, and some only do this once per week.
- Remove any rotted vegetable matter, dead insects or clumps of mold from the oatmeal substrate.
- Add more vegetables and oatmeal as needed, and move the bedding around to prevent mold.
2Keep an eye out for pupa in the mealworm habitat. Depending on the temperature and how old the mealworms were when you purchased them, transformation into the pupal stage can take anywhere from a week to a couple of months.
- Maturity is marked by gradual darkening of color in all stages of the life cycle.
- Pupa start off extremely pale white and look more like little curled up beetles than segmented worms.
- You may notice that mealworms shed their skin (moult) several times before turning to pupa. This is normal.
3Separate the pupa as soon as you start to notice them. You can do this with tweezers if it happens to gross you out.
- Pupa do not move around very much and do not require any food. Moisture doesn't hurt, but pupa will not eat away at the moisture sources you place inside the container with them.
- It is important to keep pupa separate from larva and adults because they cannot defend themselves and run the risk of being eaten before they have a chance to hatch.
- The pupal stage lasts anywhere from one to several weeks depending on the temperature. You will know they are getting close to hatching as they begin to darken in color.
4Continue to check both containers regularly for advances in the life cycle. This becomes more important as you have more insects in the various stages of development.
5Remove adult beetles from the pupa container immediately. They will begin to feed on other pupa if they are not taken out swiftly.
- Place the adult beetles into a separate container with the same setup as the mealworms. It never hurts to put a little extra oatmeal in there so they have more room to nest.
6Check the adult beetle container regularly for eggs. These will become more plentiful the more adults are in there. They can usually be found along the bottom of the container.
- It is not necessary to remove the eggs, but they serve as a signal that you will have more larva (mealworms) soon.
- Adult females will lay about 500 eggs at a time.
- Eggs will hatch within 4-19 days depending on the temperature.
7Move the mealworms out of the adult beetle habitat and into the mealworm container upon hatching. Since the females lay so many eggs at once, you will have a lot of work to do with each generation of hatchlings.
8Continue daily or weekly maintenance of the habitats. This includes replenishing food and moisture sources, keeping the insects separated according to their phases of life, removing dead insects, and moving the bedding around regularly.
- If you notice that you begin to produce more mealworms than you can feed to your pets, you can cook and eat some yourself, or humanely cull them by freezing some. Do not release them into the wild (mealworms are not native to North America). You may also feed some of the pupae to the adults, or place extra mealworms inside a bird feeder in your yard.
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- Don't forget to replace old, moldy food with new, fresh food
- If you have a smaller amount of mealworms, you may keep them in a smaller container such as a Kritter Keeper
- Storing mealworms in the fridge will slow down growth. So, if you're looking to feed your animal mealworms rather than beetles, store them in the fridge.
- You can use this as guidelines for taking care of superworms, except don't put them in the fridge. They are tropical bugs, so they like room temperature
- For the superworms to pupate, you must keep them in separate containers
- Try not to pack too many mealworms in one container.
- You don't have to clean their cages very often.
- Keep containers cool. The mealworms prefer that.
Sources and Citations
In other languages:
Español: hacer un criadero de gusanos de la harina, Deutsch: Mehlwürmer vermehren, Italiano: Allevare Insetti da Pasto, Português: Criar Larvas da Farinha, Français: élever des vers de farine, Русский: выращивать мучных червей, Bahasa Indonesia: Budidaya Ulat Hongkong, 中文: 饲养面包虫
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