# Seperating mealworm eggs?



## Mythil

Well I have decided to start breeding meal worms for my lizards.

I have read a good few guides but I can't seem to find the one bit of information I'm looking for.

I heard that the beetles will lay their eggs in slices of bread you put in, so when cleaning the beetle containers out, how do you seperate the eggs from the bread?

Also, how hard is it to clean out a beetle tub with maybe 50+ beetles in it?

Thanks!


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## Pipkin28

I set up a breeding colony last year and it's going very well. The guide I used didn't mention eggs or where they were laid. But if baby mealworms are anything to go by the eggs will be minute and difficult to see. I just have them on a bran base with calcium supplement mixed in, loads of egg crate piled on top and that's pretty much it. They lay the eggs in the bran and I let them hatch away. After a while when I can see there are plenty of weany mealworms I move the beetles to a new set up to let them carry on and then I just sift through the bran and remove the baby mealies to a separate container. It's not the best job but I haven't figured out an easier way yet!! Maybe someone will enlighten me???:whistling2:


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## REDDEV1L

I just cleaned my colony out the other day, it did have about 300+ beetles but some have died and been munched on etc (On a side-note....The females seem to like laying eggs inside the decapitated head of other beetles....mmmm...brainsssss...lol)
It took me a good couple of hours, but I don't have much eggcrate in as they seem happy enough to bury themselves in the bran/oats mix so I had to sift through it all to find the beetles.

It wasn't HARD to clean em out (u gotta watch out for flyers tho..I locked myself in my room just incase...had one who tried to fly, but did a somersault and landed about a cm away from where it started LOL) but I have two identicle storage boxes so set the spare up with fresh bran/oats mix, then just a case of transfer em over. I put all the leftover sub with eggs in into an xl long faunarium I had spare so they can hatch in peace.



Pipkin28 said:


> the eggs will be minute and difficult to see.


Yup, the eggs are pretty small...see pic.










I don't use bread...but during the clearout I found LLOOAADDSS of eggs in the dried/drying up veg skins...which is why most people leave them in I presume...I've been chucking them out once they dried out for months...DOH!!

I suppose if you did use bread it'd be ok as long as when you removed it, it was dry and crunchy and unlikely to mould, (Not sure how well they'd hatch due to lack of moisture tho) but seperating the eggs from the bread wouldn't be reliably easy I wouldn't have thought.


P.S A few guides I read said to use two containers, one which fits inside the other. In the smaller one drill some holes that are too big for the beetles to fit through, but big enough for the oats (if u use em) to go through. Then every week or two I think it said, sift the wheatbran/oats into the bigger container, then top-up the beetle tub with fresh. Seemed like a right faff on to me which is why I never bothered....Not that I need many mealies anyway...most of my current ones will be going outside for the birds once they're bigger so I didn't mind if the beetles ate some of the eggs.


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## Mythil

*Heh*

My next question had me a little worried. I put my beetles in an old faunerium like this one 










How easy would it be for the beetles to escape?


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## Mythil

*Ohh*

And, how oftern would you clean the beetles out? I'm currently using a combo of sand and oats with shredded and whole potatos as a substrate for them.


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## xsmithx2

Mythil said:


> And, how oftern would you clean the beetles out? I'm currently using a combo of sand and oats with shredded and whole potatos as a substrate for them.


i just let my breeding colony do there own thing. clean them out like once a every 8 months

yea thats what i got a faurniaum thingy.

wouldnt use sand. just use brain.


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## xsmithx2

Mythil said:


> My next question had me a little worried. I put my beetles in an old faunerium like this one
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> How easy would it be for the beetles to escape?


beetles can climb as well.


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## Meriem

*Tub 1* with mealworms
*Tub 2* with the substrate mix (bran, fish flakes, corn flakes, …)
Move all beetles *tub 2*, let them to breed, take them out when dead. Leave them to it for about month or so. There should be enough eggs depending on the number of the beetles you started with.
Prepare *Tub 3 *with substrate as before and move all (old and newly shed) beetles in. Leave them to it..
And continue on… At the end you’ll have couple of tubs with similar sizes in.
I never cleaned them and they're happily breeding.
It’s quite important (if you breed smaller numbers) to move beetles out of the tub they been lying in, as they like to munch on the eggs. :bash:

I've been breeding them like that for some time now and they seem quite happy to lay eggs just in the substrate. Sometimes I find them attached to sides of the tubs...


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## RobWar

hey guys sorry to steal this thread but was just wondering, since i've only got one gecko i put the mealworms i didn't use (after they'd turned to pupa) into a seperate container, i left these for a while and they have all died now (no movement at least) yet the container is FILLED with tiny white dots, all over the tub i mean lid sides and substrate.. i have been going with a dry diet for these chaps so i didn't think it would have been mites but there is condensation around the sides.. are these eggs or mites do you think? i can put pics up if needed


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## Haggis

big tub with a bran substrate

whack the mealworms in and leave them to it

simples!


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## RobWar

basically what i did, now im void of life and full of white specs


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