I have a rather large colony of mealworms going and was wondering what everyone else uses for bedding. I use a mixture of wheat bran and oats....

I never did mealies, cant stand them. But I dabbled in super worms for while (morios). I used your exact mix. Wheat bran and oats.

It worked just fine but their whole pupae stage, adult stage, egg stage yadda yadda was too slow and tedious for me. You have to seperate them or they done pupe (is that a word?). So I tossed the project. More of a fun thing just to see if I could do it. Did it. Dont wanna do it no more! Gimme my roaches any day of the week.

That's what I use as well.. That along with an egg crate..:) I'm starting to get some nice mealies going too. My leos are really happy, endless amounts of feed..

I just put a couple layers of newspaper on top and that seems to do the trick too. I need to give the egg crate thing a try...

I use wheat bran... and that is all. It has worked thus far.

I used wheat germ when I had them...

I use wheat bran , rolled oats / oatmeal and soybean meal. Been working out pretty good so far.

I should mention that I get what I can in 50lb bags and use mortar tubs for my colonies.

I should mention that I get what I can in 50lb bags and use mortar tubs for my colonies.

My problem is finding the whet bran in bigger bags. Where do you get yours at?

I am using 32 qt tubs for mine right now and that seems to work ok.....

I used non-medicated egg laying game bird food for both mealworms and also supers. All the stuff they need and easier to sift through later.

You can get 40(50?) lb bags of wheat bran at feed stores. And you never ever run out, unless you REALLY have a lot of colonys. I got one bag, and used it for a set of small colonys for about a year, and then fed off the superworms, and finially threw out the last of the wheat bran, and I think there were 78lbs in the bag when I threw it out. LOL.
It's like a never ending thing.

I picked up a 50lb bag at a local store that sells spices and other stuff by weight...worked out well and it was organic and dirt cheap.

Thanks for the replies. I have a good friend who owns a feed and seed in the little hodunk town I live in so I will hit him up....

I use wheat germ mixed with tropical fish flakes. Then I put sliced potatoes in for moisture. I also use egg crate for each colony. I actually forgot about my colonies for a month and when I remembered I had them I pulled just under 2000 near full sized supers from them and still had hundreds of babies in there. I love the fact that I got these started as I sell way more supers in my store than meal worms and I use supers for my own leos too so it's great!

I use oats

I used unmedicated chick starter when I had them. Easy to sift through when you're collecting feeders. Also for water I used stalks of celery split down the middle, they didn't seem to mold as quickly as potatos seemed to do.

Wheat Germ
Oats/Oatmeal
Tropical Fish Flakes
Carrots or sliced potatoes

We breed/produce/keep our mealworms in 12qt tubs... and use the egg crates for the beetles...

Thanks for the replies. I have a good friend who owns a feed and seed in the little hodunk town I live in so I will hit him up....

Yup , feed stores are great.

I'll give ya advanced warning tho , be careful on what you get as I've been told that some feeds are treated to keep beetles from infesting it. If its in question , get the number to the feed supplier and call. You'd be surprised about the info you can get from talking to the sales guy or dietitian. They may even carry a premixed worm feed that your buddy doesn't know about.

Yup , feed stores are great.

I'll give ya advanced warning tho , be careful on what you get as I've been told that some feeds are treated to keep beetles from infesting it. If its in question , get the number to the feed supplier and call. You'd be surprised about the info you can get from talking to the sales guy or dietitian. They may even carry a premixed worm feed that your buddy doesn't know about.

Thanks for the heads up Bry. I heard rumors about this during the big meal worm shortage but wasnt sure....

I heard the same thing and I believe the producers are bouncing back now. From what I understand , the treatment stops the worms from pupating into beetles.

It hasn't been determined yet but a couple breeders believe the treatment is responsible for a large number of Leo eggs not hatching or large numbers of deformities hatching. I've heard as much as 35 - 45% of last years Leos hatchlings were trashed and/or ****ed up.

I heard this too over on the gecko forum (kelly's site). A lot of the big breeders had tons of deformities... some of them were pretty gruesome....