# Basic Guide to Mealworm Breeding



## KazzysKritters

I know my mice love mealworms. I feed them live, as I feel it adds a bit of enrichment to the mice. Lots of joy jumps when they catch one! I breed my own mealworms (plus other insects) for my reptiles. It's incredibly easy, and I thought I'd post a basic "how-to" for anyone wanting to try breeding their own!

Supplies:
-Several 6-quart plastic tubs with lids (or similar)
-Soldering iron (or something you can use to poke holes in the tubs)
-Coffee grinder, or food processor 
-Sifter
-Toilet paper tubes, egg crates, or similar 
-Food
---Corn meal
---Oats
---Plan cereals 
---Carrots, Potatoes, Apples, or other veggies/fruits with a low moisture content.
-Lots of mealworms (order a decent amount online, I started with about 1,000 large mealworms, though if you have a lot of mice I'd start with more) 
You can also order the pupae or beetles if you want to start producing faster.

Take your bins, and soldering iron (or other hole punching tool). CAREFULLY poke a few holes along the sides, high up toward the top to keep the worms from escaping. I just do one row on both sides. You may need more depending on how humid it gets. Now you've got the enclosures made! Simple stuff.

Now, take your coffee grinder/food processor, it's time to get the food ready. Take your dry foods (I do a combination of whatever I have on hand, you can even add a small amount of low quality dog food if you'd like). You want it ground up into a super fine powder. This will make sifting easier when it comes time to split the worms and beetles up. Make enough to put about 2 inches of it into each of your bins.

Now just take the toilet paper tubes/egg crate pieces/etc, and place a few on top of the food. This just gives them something to climb up on to escape the heat (lots of worms in a bin will generate a good amount a heat from moving around).

Take your mealworms, and just split them up between a few bins. That way none are overly crowded. Put in a few pieces of carrot (or similar) into the bins, adding a few pieces every few days. Remove any pieces that begin growing mold. Avoid using any fruits or veggies with too much moisture content. You don't want the dry feed to become wet, and you run the risk of mold. I mainly use carrots. If you use apples, or other fruits with skin, peel it first. They won't eat the skin.

The dry food will need to be sifted out occasionally. You'll know when to dump it once it turns a grey color, and has developed a musky smell. It's mainly mealworm poop at this point. Just get a bucket, balance a sifter over the top, and poor the mealworm tub into the sifter. You'll have to shake it a good bit to separate the worms and make the dry feed/mealworm poop fall through into the bucket. Toss the contents of the bucket (first make sure no worms got through the sifter, this is easier if you use a super fine sifter, with the smallest of holes). Make a new batch of dry feed for the worms, and place them back into the bin.

Soon the worms will begin to turn into pupae. They are commonly called alien heads. This is basically the "cocoon" stage. You'll want to pick these out and place them in their own bin. Similar to how the worms are kept, but I only put about a half an inch of dry feed into the bin. Put the pupae on top of the feed.

Once they start turning into beetles, you can start adding a few pieces of veggie/fruit for them. Once you have a good amount of beetles, only leave them in the bin for about a week. Once a week, sift the beetles/pupae out of the dry food, and put the sifted out dry food (any eggs will be in the dry feed, though they may also lay on any toilet tubes/egg cartons in their tubs) into a small plastic tub (you can continue with the 6 quart tubs if you'd like, or use a smaller one until the worms get bigger). Put the beetles back into their bin with fresh dry feed.

When the eggs hatch, the worms are SUPER tiny. You'll probably not even see them for the first week or so. Just grow them up the same way as the larger worms.

Then repeat! The beetles live a decently long time, and will lay thousands of eggs in their lifetime. Just continue sifting out the eggs once a week, and replacing the dry feed. You'll have a constant supply of worms.

Oh, and you'll want to keep them in the 70-75 range. They are super easy to breed, and produce a ton of eggs, so you'll have a constant supply of mealworms for your mice. They'll also be well gutloaded, so healthier for your mice. Feel free to ask any questions. I'll try to get some pics to help explain their life cycle.

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## KazzysKritters

I apologize for any typos. I'm posting from my phone, and didn't proofread like I should have...haha!

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## Lilly

Thank you for posting that, its fascinating!

I feed mine dried mealworms because that is what I can get my hands on and they really love them but often wonder if they lose the nutrition and they obviously lose the moisture of fresh. As you said gutloading them too so you're able to have them a lot more nutritious than the ones sold for birds probably are.

I may consider doing this but my only issue is that my guy can't stand heat at all so the whole place is kept at around 60-65 year round. Is that just too cold to even consider?


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## KazzysKritters

Lilly said:


> Thank you for posting that, its fascinating!
> 
> I feed mine dried mealworms because that is what I can get my hands on and they really love them but often wonder if they lose the nutrition and they obviously lose the moisture of fresh. As you said gutloading them too so you're able to have them a lot more nutritious than the ones sold for birds probably are.
> 
> I may consider doing this but my only issue is that my guy can't stand heat at all so the whole place is kept at around 60-65 year round. Is that just too cold to even consider?


If you can keep them in a warmer area, it should be fine. You can supplement heat with a heating mat set on the lowest setting if need be. 

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## KazzysKritters

Just a few pics

Mealworm tub
















Beetle Tub
















Pupae









The dry feed









Sifting process
Remove tubes/egg crates








I use a ladle to scoop up the worms and feed








The sifter/bucket















Poor worms/feed into sifter








Shake the sifter over the bucket to separate the worms from the feed
















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## Cheshire Gleam

Very nice guide! I've had reservations about breeding mealworms myself due to thinking it would be too much maintenance, but this makes it easy to understand. One thing though; I only have ten mice and another litter on the way, so not many. They're fed them only a few times a week. Starting with a thousand mealies seems unnecessary and I also don't want to end up overrun with them. Could you suggest a good number to begin with?


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## KazzysKritters

Cheshire Gleam said:


> Very nice guide! I've had reservations about breeding mealworms myself due to thinking it would be too much maintenance, but this makes it easy to understand. One thing though; I only have ten mice and another litter on the way, so not many. They're fed them only a few times a week. Starting with a thousand mealies seems unnecessary and I also don't want to end up overrun with them. Could you suggest a good number to begin with?


Thanks! 

If you are wanting to feed from the mealworms immediately, maybe start with about 500. That way you have some to grow into beetles for breeding, and you can feed some to the mice while you wait for them to start reproducing. The worms take a bit to grow once they hatch, though, so you may still need to get more to continue feeding to the mice.

Just for a reference, pictured is just one of my bins. I have 3 others at the moment with worms. One has larger worms, and the two others have tiny babies. All, except for the one with the larger worms, have at least 1,000 (+) worms in it. I started breeding this batch off of 1,000 mealworms I bought about 4 or 5 months ago.

Once you get them producing you can limit the amount by feeding off any pupae and beetles to the mice as well. Keep maybe 20 beetles for breeding.

Hope this helps. I'm half asleep, so I apologize for any mistakes.

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## KazzysKritters

Oh, and I bet if you get overrun you can easily find either a local bait shop, or maybe someone that keeps reptiles or birds, that would be happy to take some off your hands. If you want, you can even set up a wild birds feeder with them. The local birds would love it 

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## Lilly

Probably a silly question but can you freeze the worms to allow you to space them out longer while the pupae > beetle > egg > worm stage is going on?


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## KazzysKritters

Lilly said:


> Probably a silly question but can you freeze the worms to allow you to space them out longer while the pupae > beetle > egg > worm stage is going on?


You can refrigerate them for a decent amount of time. From what I've read, they can stay in the fridge for 6-10 weeks. They go into a dormant state, and once you pull them out they'll start to wake up.

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## Cheshire Gleam

Thanks for the advice.  I think I'll start trying to breed them soon, once I get the proper materials and all. Sounds a ton better than spending seven dollars for only fifty of them, that don't even last the whole month!


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## KazzysKritters

Cheshire Gleam said:


> Thanks for the advice.  I think I'll start trying to breed them soon, once I get the proper materials and all. Sounds a ton better than spending seven dollars for only fifty of them, that don't even last the whole month!


Anytime!! They are super easy to breed. In fact, when I first bred them (many many years ago) it was completely by accident! I had several containers with worms, and my sister (she was young) took one and put it in her closet for some reason. When I finally found them, about 4 months later, it was full of beetles (most dead) and thousands of tiny worms! Shows how hardy they are, haha!

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## greta

Thank you. This post was SO helpful. I had no idea they ate mealworms. I will go buy them at pet store))



KazzysKritters said:


> Just a few pics
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> Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk


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