How to Care for a Mealworm

If you intend to raise mealworms as food for pet birds or if you're involved in a school project involving raising mealworms, you'll need to know how to care for them. While mealworms don't require extensive care, there are some things you will need to do if you're going to keep mealworms.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Plastic container with lid
• Substrate
• Apple slices, potatoes, carrots or bananas

1. Line a plastic container with a thin layer of crushed oatmeal, cornmeal, wheat or oat bran. The plastic container should be approximately the size of a kitty litter box. Make sure to poke holes in the lid of the container.

2. Place small slices of apple, potato, bananas or carrots in the container. Though mealworms will eat the crushed material you used as a substrate, care should be given to provide additional food for the mealworms.

3. Take the mealworms out of the container every one to two months, throw out the substrate and replace with new material. Replace any moisture source such as a potato or apples daily or if they show signs of mold.

4. Keep the container heated between 60 and 80 degrees. Warmer is best. Also, mealworms prefer the dark, so no lighting is needed.

5. Add some new substrate to the container regularly, as mealworms will eat this material. Don't allow the substrate to get too low.

Tips & Warnings

• In addition to being a food source, apples, potatoes or carrots inside the mealworm's container also provide a source of needed moisture. Mealworms will dry out and die without moisture.
• Do not allow apple slices, potatoes or other moist food sources to grow moldy. Mold will kill your mealworms.

[carolyn1945]

on 7/30/2009 I have been growing mealworms for a wildlife rehab facility since Jan. Things were going great til last week when all of the new larvae died and many of the new adult mealworms seem to have been eaten with just their hollow skin left!!!! Does anyone know what the problem could be???? I am panicing because we need this to work.