Mealworm Life Cycle

[lil05]

they smell .. anyway to stop that? without harming them or my leo

[the-tick]

cut the veg smaller

[Elmodfz]

Very useful thread, I wondered what my mealies were doing.

However, I had an "alien" in there and left it, and it did get munched but oh well. I don't want beetles running around the place lol.

I feed mine on lettuce every few weeks, I must admit I wasn't sure on what to feed them as Ive never looked in here before lol.

Why oats? I don't get that lol. May try it though, I think we have a box of porridge sumwhere lol.

Also I just bought Leopard Gecko Dust, how much should I put on the meal worms and how often??

[FoxyMumma]

wooooooooo! Ive had mealies for 4 weeks, had aliens 2 weeks ago and got my first beetle today!!! must be doing something right!!!

[Amyboo]

we bought 500g the other day, aswell as about 2 60g pots earlier that week, theyre kept in a exo terra faunarium, not the longest one, but the one below that, without the divide. since last week we've been taking out over 15 aliens a day and been keeping them in a livefood tub, we have so many you cant see the bottom of the tub, about 2cm deep of aliens, i have had only 2 die since taking them out, once i take them out they begin to brown up and get harder, hopefully come next week we will have some beetles, when that happens ill try and get the beetles out and put them in the exo terra with the mealworms to lay and eat.

you say it takes about 2 months from beetle to baby mealworms?

think ill have to buy another 500g bag before then, my hedgehog and leo's love them, the leo's went off crickets long before mealworms, now i dont have to feed them crickets just put a pot of mealworms in!

this has been really usefull thread, we used to get aliens long before we bred them (we only used to buy mini mealworms nd the leo's never bothered with them prob being too small) but we always chucked them as we didnt want beetles.

[Parky]

I got babies at last! Well, ive probably had them for a while, only looked in today and noticed the substrate was moving on its own accord .

[Juzza12]

I've got loads of babies in my first tub now. Some are nearly at feeder size. I've got two other tubs with beetles in so should be sorted for mealies now

[funky1]

Don`t forget to chuck all the uneaten mealies out of the vivs - into the breeding tubs. The heat from the viv seems to help speed up the process of turning them into beetles.

[sam12345]

Originally Posted by funky1

Don`t forget to chuck all the uneaten mealies out of the vivs - into the breeding tubs. The heat from the viv seems to help speed up the process of turning them into beetles.

Personally i wouldnt do this and any livefood that isnt eaten but has been in an enclosure for any length of time gets thrown.
The livefood can easily eat the reptiles faeces and if the reptile has any diseases or illnesses it is passed on to the livefood, which then goes in the tub... spreads it through the other livefood back to your other reptiles and so on...

[Parky]

Originally Posted by sam12345

Personally i wouldnt do this and any livefood that isnt eaten but has been in an enclosure for any length of time gets thrown.
The livefood can easily eat the reptiles faeces and if the reptile has any diseases or illnesses it is passed on to the livefood, which then goes in the tub... spreads it through the other livefood back to your other reptiles and so on...

I dont mind leaving mealies in there, i however made the mistake of leaving a male and female cricket in there (didnt know at the time).
Im sure you can take a wild guess at what happens next.