Is breeding mealworms as easy as it sounds?

May 5, 2008 4:23 PM

Mealworm breeding: what do I need to know?

I'd like to have a go at breeding mealworms. I've never bred insects before, so I'm a little unsure of myself. I've read a few websites about it, but I figured I'd check the crowd here to see if they have any tips or experience.

The main thing I'm concerned about is the egg stage. Apparently they're very small, and the substrate needs to be cleaned out every couple of days - how will I manage to save the eggs between cleaning's?

Does anyone here have any advice or experience they'd like to share?

posted by Solomon to home & garden (4 comments total)

It's about 50 years since I grew them, but they were very, very easy back then and probably haven't changed much! I certainly didn't clean the substrate frequently - only if it got rank. I used wheat bran as the substrate, and (rarely) took half out and put fresh in. It was so easy that I don't remember any problems. They are surprisingly innocuous to grow.

Unless you're looking to make a commercial thing, where the economics are important, you can just get a box and get started.
posted by anadem at 4:44 PM on May 5, 2008

im curious. is this why you want to breed them? i was just wondering ...
posted by gcat at 5:55 PM on May 5, 2008

(the use as a protein powder struck me as quite interesting.)
posted by gcat at 5:57 PM on May 5, 2008

They're so easy that I completely forgot I had mine but when I go downstairs to check on them they'll be fine. (I just checked ... there are too many dead beetles but plenty of live stuff. They're due for a cleaning.) No doubt if I took better care of them they'd thrive more, but even with almost zero care they still breed and live.

I'll tell you what, I change their substrate maybe once a year. Seriously. I don't tend to any specific stages. Right now the box contains worms of all sizes, the beetles, the larvae, and there are eggs in there but I have no idea where.

I don't know how you'd even go about cleaning every few days. When I do clean, I do a pretty meticulous job. I go through and pick out anything I can find that's alive, and put it in a clean box w/new substrate (some kind of cereal flakes ... maybe I chose a nutritious one like Special K but it might be just Corn Flakes). I get rid of everything that's dead. That's that. But I keep the old substrate for a few more weeks because there are lots of eggs and tiny worms in there that I couldn't see before, so as they grow, I move them. Eventually everyone grows up and then I finally pitch the old substrate.

I feed mine a combination of fish flakes, other fish food (I get hand-me-downs from my dad, who keeps fish), and commercial cricket food. And vegetable scraps, though I haven't lately. I think they thrived best when I was giving them greens regularly. That's something that does have to be taken out/replaced every few days, or it gets icky in there. I use a spray bottle to spray the whole shebang once a week or so. They definitely thrive the most when I offer them water regularly.

If you're getting into it for commercial purposes, you'll need more advice than I can give you. :) But if you're keeping an animal that eats mealworms (which is why I have mealworms; the animal has since died but I just can't decide what to do with the worms) there is no reason to buy them more than one time.
posted by iguanapolitico at 6:20 PM on May 5, 2008