info needed on meal and wax worms

[ScorpDude]

hi, well i am going to feed my scorpion mainly meal and wax worms (meal worms fed by "hand" as they burrow ) supplimented with worms and stuff from the garden . i am going to keep the food in the fridge (will have to hide it lol) but i was wonderin, on a substrate of 1/2 crushed dog biccies and 1/2 porridge oats, how long will the food last?
thanks

i might also pick up some silent crix and hide em from my mum (she doesnt want crix )

 

[krtrman]

if you pull the wings off of the male crickets they will be silent. the nales are the ones without the long black ovipositor on their hind end. if you keep your worms in the fridge they will eat very little if at all since cold slows them down, however after a while they will die. the ones you get from a tore are not really that nutritious. they will do but once the have warmed up and fed a bit the will be more plump and active and therefore more attractive food. and you can crush the head of mealworms so they do not burrow. your best bet is to try and culture mealworms. do an internet search and there are some great sites. ill find one if i can and pm it to you. wax worms are more difficult to culture. becareful from garden food as they might have stored up pesticides.

 

[ScorpDude]

so are you saying immature crickets are silent?

 

[Dessicata]

Yes, immature crickets and females are silent. Mealworm are easy to rear, I bought one bulk bag a year ago, and it is still going. Waxworms are very easy to rear also. Put them in a kritterkeeper, on an inch of substrate. This substrate is a mixture of rolled oats, crushed bran flakes, and lots of honey. When finished, it should look like one of those chewy treacley cornflakey type biscuits we got long ago at school. Obviously you wont know what they are Anyway this substrate should be visible moist due to the honey (not in a wet way), and should look good enough to eat (don't though). Throw in 2 pots of waxworms (without the wood shavings) and soon you will have a tank with lots of baby waxworm, and lots of dead waxmoths. Take these out as they die, they dont live very long, but if you find the odd live on in with the dead, you can feed these to your stuff (I feed them to my bearded dragons and skinks - funny watching them running and jumping around).

Lee

 

[ScorpDude]

and i dont need to keep them in the fridge? how fast do they go thro the substrate? so i just keep addin to the substrate and then i have a supplie of wax worms that will last for ever?

is a diet on solely meal worms and wax worms sufficient?

also, how do u rear meal worms?

 

[krtrman]

http://www.geckonetwork.com/gutload.htm this will help.

or this one:http://www.drgecko.com/insectdiet.htm

some of the stuff i leave out cause it is a little more dificult tofind or a bit more than i would like to pay. i place the mix on top of a substrate of whole rolled oats and instant oats. check out this thread:

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=15216

it is for superworms but will work for mealworms.

 

[krtrman]

oops i forgot to add. the only part you have to leave out is forcing the mealworms to pupate by separating them. they will pupate on their own. just start out with about 150 mealworms dump them into the container and then let them do their thing. you should have a good size colony in a month or so.

 

[krtrman]

some more links:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2135.html

http://aquanic.org/publicat/state/il-in/faq/mealwax.htm

http://www.leapingfromthebox.com/art/rlg/mealworms.html

http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts/misc/ef002.htm

 

[ScorpDude]

thanks for all the links.
ill have a look over them 2morro, its late now and im tired, im off to bed

1 more thing, the beetles of the meal worms, do they eat? coz i wouldnt mind keeping them seperatly, with no food (if they dont eat) and just the stuff for them to lay eggs.

also, can i give my scorp just meal worms as food?
thanks

 

[tarsier]

does everyone do this?

about the crushing of heads (of mealworms), does everyone do this? I have noticed that worms stay in the tank longer than crickets cos they burrow. Or do some people just let the worms burrow and let the scorps wait til they surface? :?

 

[krtrman]

to trasier: i do crush the heads because i have found that the beetles are unattractive as food to my scorps. and once the mealworms have burrowed they never surface until they have pupated. my tarantulas love the bbetles on the other hand.

you can use the same mix for the beetles as they do eat. you will need to slice a potato or carrot for moisture. both the beetles and the larvae will eat the potato. when the potato has dried up leave it in the container as the beetles will most likely have laid eggs on the dried pieces inside the holes they have chewed out. I just leave them all together. its kinda fun watching them all interact. one thing i do is separate some of the pupae to a small delicup, this cuts down on the munching on them from the adult beetles. i found i was having quite a few incidents of future beetle sabotage. not enough to decimate my population, but enough for me to take notice. once the pupae have changed into beetles they go back into the general population.

i would try and vary the diet as much as possible. i do not know of anyone who has fed a scorp just mealworms for any long period of time. but i can say that after a while (3 or 4 weeks ) of feeding just mealworms one of my scorps will not eat them for a long time. (i couldnt find healthy crickets for about 2 months. and had no choice but to feed mealworms.)

 

[tarsier]

thanks

krtrman, thanks for the advice. read somewhere that scorps dont eat dead insects which is why i never tried serving pre-killed food. thanks again

 

[krtrman]

i have found that crushing their heads makes them wiggle a little bit more and doesnt kill them right away. probably why this works. at least for me anyway. helps to place them right near your scorp with a pair of long tweezers so the scorp can find them. my emp usually waits at the entrance to his burrow, so it makes it easy for me to place the mealworms there. he snatches them right up.

 

[ScorpDude]

krtr, will a diet of meal worms and waxworms be ok or will my scorp get bored and start to refuse em?

 

[krtrman]

as i stated earlier, my juvie emp gets tired after a few weeks of nothing but mealworms. i have found that wax worms dont interest him at all. so what i am trying to say is depends on the personality.

 

[Scorpie]

on the subject of feeding.
what do most of you guys feed your scorpions.
i have only ever fed my scorpions crickets and one or two small house cocroaches (sorry roach lovers)