Mealworm Life Cycle

[zippy4emma]

ive had no baby mealies yet. how long does it take for the bettles to breed lay eggs and then hatch?

[freekygeeky]

they take a month or so.. it will take a while to get goign liek everything, and you probably have bebies you just cannot see them.. the babies when born are white and about 1 - 2 mm.

Originally Posted by zippy4emma

ive had no baby mealies yet. how long does it take for the bettles to breed lay eggs and then hatch?

[zippy4emma]

Originally Posted by freekygeeky

they take a month or so.. it will take a while to get goign liek everything, and you probably have bebies you just cannot see them.. the babies when born are white and about 1 - 2 mm.

do the beetles die after breeding? how many mealies can you keep in a small plastic tank 12''x8''?

[janiej]

Ignorance is bliss, I been cleaning mine out every three days, i feed them to the hedgies. Dont they stink if you dont clean them?

[freekygeeky]

Originally Posted by zippy4emma

do the beetles die after breeding? how many mealies can you keep in a small plastic tank 12''x8''?

nop. they last quite a while. a few hundred could live in there

Originally Posted by janiej

Ignorance is bliss, I been cleaning mine out every three days, i feed them to the hedgies. Dont they stink if you dont clean them?

lol. nop dont smell at all
they are very unsmelly (which is good!)

[reptile_dude]

today I've discovered hundreds of minute mealworms rumerging through the oats, I was so happy at the site of this they were in the beetle container which I gave up on breeding months ago, what I noticed long before I found the little guys was that there was about four adult mealworms resting on the top. I think they have been breeding the whole time because the beetles wouldn't of survived for that long, there were mealworms of every size in there. I was wandering does everyone just leave the colony be and only 'harvest' the adult mealworms or just seperate the babies from the beetles if so how do you do this?
thankyou

[freekygeeky]

i leave mine all togetehr, they seem to have their own areas...

beetles on top, adults just under the surface, and babies at the bottom

i take out what i want and need when i need them

Originally Posted by reptile_dude

today I've discovered hundreds of minute mealworms rumerging through the oats, I was so happy at the site of this they were in the beetle container which I gave up on breeding months ago, what I noticed long before I found the little guys was that there was about four adult mealworms resting on the top. I think they have been breeding the whole time because the beetles wouldn't of survived for that long, there were mealworms of every size in there. I was wandering does everyone just leave the colony be and only 'harvest' the adult mealworms or just seperate the babies from the beetles if so how do you do this?
thankyou

[Esfa]

can the adult beetles be fed to adult leopard geckos?

edit: nvm, apparently you shouldn't.

i've just set mine up.. with almost all the cereal i could find.

[reptile_dude]

Apparently they have a low nutritional value, hard shells too, making them difficult to digest. I wouldn't feed them to a leopard gecko, I don't know about larger lizards though.

[platypus]

In a nerdy way or coarse . I have been inspired to set up a mealworm farm ,as this last couple of weeks i cannot get enough mealies when i need them . So big thanks to freeky for an excellent thread .