Dubia roaches

If you have a bunch of mealie bugs, why not start your own colony? Really easy to look after.

Not sure i would be allowed any of these my OH is a bit squemish about bugs

The nice thing about mealies is that they don't hop about like crickets, they aren't nearly as smelly and they are quiet.
They are easy to grow on, just do it in an open top plastic box with high steep sides. I used progrub as a substrate/food with fresh veggies chucked on daily and brown bread every other day. Just remove old bits of veg each day. This provides their water but you can always use bug gel. The only trouble you may have is sorting the mealies out of the bran. You can make one of these (see below). I observed mealies crawling away from direct sunlight once and came up with this when I worked with Cornwall Bat Hospital. It saves so much time when you need to sort out a lot of mealies!



Fill the metal sieve with mealies and substrate straight from the box, put a desk lamp over the top, switched on. The heat from the lamp makes the mealies squirm out over the mesh and drop into the tray leaving behind the substrate bran and crappy stuff. Watch the lamp doesn't get too hot by being too close. Then you just collect them out of the tray. You can go away and leave them, come back half an hour or an hour later (depending on how many you need, how much you have to sort out etc) all the substrate gets left behind and all you have is pure mealies! The substrate can be tipped right back into the colony box

Let me know if this helps anyone!