Mealworm Confusion
 

Sorry for another thread guys.

I have been buying the "giant mealworms" from Petco to feed my leos.
These are getting pricey so I was going to order some online. I know some people sell mealworms that have been enlarged by stereriods, and I obviously do not want these. How do I know that I'm getting the right kind? At Petco they have containers with "mealworms," "giant mealworms," and "superworms" (Zoophas). Are the giant mealworms at pet stores just older versions of their mealworms? In other words, are they both tenibrio molitar? Its been a long long time since I've fed mealworms to my other reptiles, and I've forgotten what I'm doing lol. I was looking at sunshinemealworms.com, and they have "sunshine giants" and I dont know what those are!
Help?

Tania

PS Suggestions for where to order them online would be great too.
Thanks

Hi Tania,
I would highly recommend American Cricket Ranch (www.americancricketranch.com) to order your feeders. They are very reasonably priced and the worms are very big and robust. I would suggest using superworms as a staple diet for your leos (zoophobas),,, they are easy to gutload, they are active and catch your leo's attention, they are big so you don't have to feed your leos as many, and they are impossible to kill (mine last for months). To vary your LG's diet a little, you can feed them regular mealies, crickets, hornworms, and roaches a few times per month. I don't know much about giant mealies but I heard that they are pumped with hormones to make them big. I am not sure if this is a myth but I personally steer clear of them. Good Luck!

reptilefood.com is pretty good as well, and they ship super fast

I just now switched them over from crickets to mealworms, so I'm afraid to switch them again. Superworms seem too big for these guys right now... even though they are adults... I don't think they could eat the large ones.
I'm pretty sure the giants at Petco aren't the stereriod ones, but I could be wrong. These are about an inch long... do regular meal worms get that big?

Well I called American Cricket Ranch and he confirmed that the Giant Mealworms are given hormones, not stereriods, to make them larger. So... not sure what to do now.. lol. I still think adult supers are going to be too large.

Ive never bought giant mealies so i wouldnt know, but what ill affects could horomones have on a leo anyway?

some pet shops name mealworms wrong a local one I got worms from has small mealworms and large meal worms. when in fact the small mealworms were large mealworms and the large ones were them nasty giant mealworms my geckos wont eat and I dont blame them i for sure would stay away from them. as others have said order your worms from one of the many online stores. I use www.wormman.com most of the time. I also used sunshine once.

Has anyone ever used ebay? Its alot cheaper so I'm considering it. Outside of ebay Wormman seems to be the cheapest for mealies, I'm not sure who is for super worms.

Well correction, herpfood is the cheapest

reptilecity.com is the cheapest I have found for lower qunatities , I placed my first order with them this week so I can't tell about service yet.

they have 1000 supers (in any size ex small to ex large), mealies (any size) and crix (any size) for $10.80 shipped per 1000.

I normally buy 10,000 large mealies from grubco or $43 delivered so the 10,000 price would be high from reptilecity but the lower qty's are very well priced. I have emailed them for a fauna price on bulk orders to see if we can get them cheaper in bulk.