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Mealworm beetles - OK to eat??

66K views 22 replies 18 participants last post by  purple-vixen  
#1 ·
A few of our meal worms have turned to beetles (yuck!!) & my little lad desperatley wants to feed them to our leo, are they OK for her to eat?
I have no interest in eating them myself, what else do I do with them?:lol2:
 
#3 ·
beetles are no good , and just to let u know if u keep mealies in fridge u wont have that problem agn, just take them out and gut load some 24 hrs b4 feeding
 
#4 ·
I don't believe it would be a good idea to feed the beetles as the shell would be quite difficult to digest. Also I have found that leopard geckos are not to fond of beetles, the beetles give off this scent when frightened and probibly would taste quite horrid. You can kill the beetles if you would like, or you can start a small colony. As said above, the meal worms, if kept in the fridge, will slow the growth, keeping them mealworms for longer.
 
#8 ·
I know it may sounds almost cruel but, I throw the mealworms out (drown) as soon as they pupate(?) into the alien immobile stage.

Afterall they fly and have a significant greater, hard to digest, shell density than most other foods.
No, sorry but mealworm beetles do not fly.
 
#6 ·
if u keep them they might breed and supply you with a few millies
 
#7 ·
Mealworm beetles are safe to feed to rep's/amp's but they taste fowl.So meny rep's/amp's refuse to eat them and deffo wouldn't eat them on a large scale.
 
#15 ·
iv heard thay are poisenes
and thers a smaller version of them that comes in the cricet tubs and thay deffenutley fly
are the ones that come in cricet tubs ok to feed
 
#22 ·
we always have the little buggers flying around...the 4 cats love chasing them and eating them! best way to get rid of them is def having a cat or 4. :)
 
#23 ·
I wouldn't feed the beetles to my leos.

I try to throw the aliens outside in the garden, not in the bin also.

Seriously, if them beetles escape, I would creep out, so I clean out my mealies once a week. I used to keep them in the fridge, but then one lot just seemed to die, I checked the fridge and it was 1 degrees, so I guess that was too low!

Anyway, I honestly thought they could fly, but never seen one...