Mealworms

Matty Munster on January 13th 2012, 12:53 pm

Could someone explain to me what gut loading meal worms is and how to do it?

my mealworms live in a tube in the fridge and are mixed with weetabix stuff the breeder gave me.

Firstly do i need to empty the weetabix stuff on a certain period? What else can i put in there?

Kiania on January 13th 2012, 2:21 pm

Gutloading is feeding nutritious food to remain in the gut of the feeder insect to add nutritional value to it as a food source.

Twice a week, take your tub out of the fridge (I'd suggest leaving for an hour to let them warm up before adding food), put in thin slices (or grated) carrot, blueberries (in half), thin slices of cucumber/apple/pear/etc. Basically fruit and veg. They won't need masses of it. After 3 or 4 hours, remove the remaining food (and toss), and place tub back in the fridge. Et voila, gutloaded mealworms.

I'd also suggest mixing some porridge oats (supermarket value brand is fine) with your weetabix. Weetabix apparently has quite a lot of salt and sugar in it - that said, I usually mix a smidge in with my oats (70% oats, 20% weetabix, 10% bran on average - bran just because I have it around) as the mealworms like it (obviously - who doesn't like sugary/salty foods?!).

Once a month (ish, depending on how many mealworms you have), take a sieve, and either outside, or over a binbag, pour mealworms (plus whatever substrate) into the sieve, and shake briskly, pour into a fresh pot as you go. This gets rid of the frass (mealworm poo) which is the granula meaty-smelling stuff at the bottom of the tub.