meal worms as pets

[ri]

Hi All,
does anyone else keep meal worms?
If so, can you advise what medium they prefer to live in?
We keep ours in rolled oats but I wonder if they would prefer bran?
We feed them apple slices. Is this enough moisture?
The numbers seem to be going down although they mostly live out of sight so it is hard to tell.
Have a wonderful break everyone....
Cheers,
~Robyn

[Slartibartfast]

Its important to provide roughly 3 inches of high-quality and nutritious substrate for the worms to burrow in and eat. Many people keep their mealworms on a simple substrate of oat bran. We prefer to maximize the nutritional quality of the substrate since the mealworms actually eat it. We include a mix of:

12 grain cereal mix, baby rice, cereal, rolled oats,
white bran, wheat germ, red bran

We also sprinkle in the following items to boost the nutritional quality of the substrate even further:

alfalfa flakes, dandelion flakes, spirulina flakes
bee pollen, dried sea kelp, tropical fish flakes

[ri]

Dear Richard,
Wow!
what a diet - I had no idea those foods existed.
Sounds delicious!
Will make every effort to up the nutritional qualities of our meal worms diet.
Thank you,
Cheers,
~Robyn

[Slartibartfast]

Are you keeping them as pets or fattening them up as food for larger pets i.e. lizards/fish/school canteen?

[ri]

Dear Richard,
we keep them as simple uncomplicated pets, for invertebrate studies and 'handling of insects' skills....am trying to teach them tricks but they seem to be slow learners, still.... we all work for a school.....
~Robyn

[Alice]

Hi ri

We've kept mealworms for years.

I use wheat bran and feed them sliced apple.

They are kept in a small glass aquarium and I also put wet paper towel on the top for moisture.

I clean the aquarium out once a term, and start with fresh bran. That way there is no smell. I place the mealworms in a sieve and the debris falls through, not the mealworms!

Richard's mealworms have to be the best fed in the country!

Cheers

Alice

[ri]

Dear Alice,
I have just put damp paper over them and they love it!
They've come from everywhere for the moisture. Will change their bedding soon.
Thanks,
~Robyn

[Slartibartfast]

We feed ours to our collection of reptiles and salt water fish therefore the complicated diet for them! Our worms are so well fed they have several chins (their whole length in fact) and refuse to become beetles as they know they won't be fed anything but mortein if they reach that stage!

[souj]

Our mealworms also live quite happily on a mixture of rolled oats and bran- they do love thinly sliced potato occasionally-YUM YUM!!