How to Raise Mealworm Mites

Mealworms are a food source high in protein and are easy to manage.

Mealworms are the larval stage of an insect commonly used to feed exotic pets. Reptiles, amphibians, small rodents and birds eat mealworms. A high source of protein, mealworms can be purchased live at pet stores. However, if you have a large number of pets and would rather avoid the hassle and cost of constantly purchasing mealworms, farming them yourself is a good option. The one difficultly in farming mealworms is mites. Farming meal worms is easy as long as you take precautions to prevent mites.

Things You'll Need

• Three, 2-by-3 foot clear plastic containers with tops
• Baby carrots
• Feed oats or bran
• Apple
• Small screen strainer

Instructions

1. Buy a batch of 1,000 mealworm larva. Fill the bottom 3 inches of one container with the oats. Drop 1/4 of an apple on top of the oats. Put your mealworms in the container. The larva can live on top of one another, stacked 1 to 2 inches deep, so do not be concerned if it seems like you have too many. Depending on the age of the larva -- they have a 10-week maturation period -- you should have pupa in a month or two.

2. Separate the pupa from the larva and put them in the second container, also filled with oats. The pupa look different from the larva because they are flat and have legs. In addition, when larva molt to become pupa, at the early stage the pupa are white. Later they turn dark brown while the larva are a coffee-cream brown and have no legs. Feed the pupa chunks of baby carrot. Allow them to eat as much as they like. Make sure there is a constant supply of carrots for them.

3. Once the pupa molt into beetles, separate them out of the pupa container and put them in your third container that contains 3 inches of bran. Within two weeks, the beetles will begin laying eggs. Separate the eggs out with the small screen strainer and put them in your original container with oats. In a week or two, the eggs should hatch into larva and you will have completed your first cycle.

Tips & Warnings

• If you can keep your container temperature at 80 degrees and at 70 percent humidity, conditions will be ideal for your mealworms to reproduce.

• Change the bedding of the bins between every cycle. Do not use the same oats or bran for different cycles.

References

• sialis.org: Raising Mealworms
• Random Bits of Projects; How to Raise Meal Worms; August 4, 2008