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Posted by iwana on April 23, 2003 at 11:52:57:
In Reply to: Need help please w/ Superworm Beetles.... posted by LindsayMarie on April 23, 2003 at 10:50:56:
The same thing happened to me when I first started breeding my mealworms. I had a very high mortality rate with the mealworms, they were taking a very long time to pupate and a lot of the beetles were dying. At the time, I was using a flour and cornmeal mix. I then switched to using bran and have had a lot of success with that, i.e. the worms got big fast, turned into pupae quickly and very few beetles have been dying. Maybe you are right about the fine powder suffocating them.
However, I have noticed that a lot of the beetles seem to eat each other. I think this may indicate that there is insufficient protein in their diet, so I've been adding some homemade cricket gutload to their substrate (the gutload consists of high-quality cat food, dog food, alfalfa pellets, skim milk powder and vitamin supplements). A lot of caresheets indicate merely using bran, but evidently, this is not sufficient.
If anyone else has any insight on this, it would be greatly appreciated!
Julie
:I decided to raise my own superworms so I seperated some of the strongest and biggest worms and waited for them to morph. It took a couple months for stupid me to figure out how to do it exactly, but finally the last couple weeks my worms started changing, first to pupae's then to beetles. Well it seems the beetles arent in their container more then 4 or 5 days and they are starting to die off. I only had 14 morph and 1 has died and a couple more are REAL slow and weak looking now?? What am I doing wrong? They are in 5 gallon rubbermaid with a homemade bedding consisting of: Baby rice cereal, untoasted wheat germ, multigrain cheerios, unsalted sunflower seeds, alfalfa, green split peas and tropical fish flakes. I used a coffee grinder to make all of the ingredients like a chunky powder. Is there an ingredient that is killing them maybe???? I also have a couple cardboard cup holders in their for them to climb on and I used apples last week for water and this week I am trying greens to see if that helps. What does everyone else use for the beetles to drink water??? NOT the superworms, the beetles. What am I doing wrong??? The temp in the room is around 71-75 during the night and around 79-80 with the lizard lights on during the day. If someone could help asap that would be great. I worked so hard to get them 14 superworms to turn to beetles that it hurts to see them die on me now! DARNIT! Thanks, Lindsay
:ALSO, Could it be that they are breathing in the bedding and suffocating? I know the worms can handle the bedding when it is on the powdery side.... but can the beetles?
:Just an idea....
