Superworms

I saw in the recent poll here how many of y'all feed superworms to your geckos, how do you keep them, can they just live in a plastic container like a Rubbermaid bin until they are needed, or can you just put them in with the geckos and let any uneaten ones just stay in there??

Lucille,

I set my supers up pretty much like I do my mealworms. I order 1000-2000 weekly, and set them up in a blanket box on about 2 inches of bran. I feed them carrots, apples, oranges, kale. I also add a thin layer of Vionate to the top of the bran. I pick the supers as needed to feed my geckos. They stay alive for a long time, and the good thing about supers is that they will not pupate when kept in this manner. They only pupate when they are by themselves.

what kind of bug do superworms become. Are they hard to breed and raise a colony?

They become beetles ... kinda a bigger version of a darkling beetle (mealworm beetle). As Kelli said, they won't pupate unless they are alone. That can make them difficult to breed. From what I've seen, you have to separate the worms, many people use empty film canisters. An additional difficulty is that I find they are more than happy to eat eachother. Even with keeping them with tons of veggies, I still lose some.

I had no trouble breeding these guys. If you do a search "superworm breeding" on google you'll find a ton of reasources. You can also check this out:

http://www.triciaswaterdragon.com/me....htm#zoophobas

sorry, didn't mean to hit enter...

I found them easier to keep clean and breed than mealworms, but that's just my opinion. I bought a cheap fish lure bait box with several compartments and kept a worm in each compartment. Then I'd just put the beetles in a container and they would breed. They're pretty cool looking beetles too.
Just make sure all your containers are all enough, or use thick plastic lids, because I've found beetles and superworms to be the masters of esacping.

what do the beetles need to breed???water,food,etc?

what do the beetles need to breed???water,food,etc?

I bred thousands of them. It's easy. Just keep the beetles in a tub with bran or whatever you use for your mealies. No need to gutload the beetles really, so slices of potato are fine for moisture. What I did was put a date on each bin when I set the beetles up, and then moved them after 2 weeks to a new bin and etc. They live for quite a while. It takes some time, but soon you will have tons of little baby supers!

Originally Posted by tanias16

sorry, didn't mean to hit enter...

I found them easier to keep clean and breed than mealworms, but that's just my opinion. I bought a cheap fish lure bait box with several compartments and kept a worm in each compartment. Then I'd just put the beetles in a container and they would breed. They're pretty cool looking beetles too.
Just make sure all your containers are all enough, or use thick plastic lids, because I've found beetles and superworms to be the masters of esacping.

Say! That's a great idea, I'll have to give that a try. I didn't like the film canister idea...it's been about 3 years since I've used ACTUAL film in my camera! LOL

Originally Posted by KelliH

I bred thousands of them. It's easy. Just keep the beetles in a tub with bran or whatever you use for your mealies. No need to gutload the beetles really, so slices of potato are fine for moisture. What I did was put a date on each bin when I set the beetles up, and then moved them after 2 weeks to a new bin and etc. They live for quite a while. It takes some time, but soon you will have tons of little baby supers!

I think I would like to try to breed mealies and superworms. Prior to the new geckos, buying was the way to go, but they eat a lot of bugs and breeding at least some sounds like it would be economical.

Kelli, can you give some idea of the time frames involved, from breeding until there are edible bugs?