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Thread: How to: Superworms made EASY!

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Birmingham, AL
    Posts
    199

    Default How to: Superworms made EASY!

    I was asked by someone on the forum today to elaborate in detail on how to breed your own Superworms so I thought I'd help out others that may want the info as well. So, here ya have it!
    The system I used is one that Bert Langerwerf(who introduced them to the pet trade...for those that didn't know) wrote an article about that was published in Reptiles Magazine back in the age of dinosaurs when we had no internet. So pardon me if I variate from his formula, it's been some 1990 somethin' ago.

    What you need:

    Get 9 plastic pans, not unlike cat litter pans, smooth sides- cheap as you can. (I used smaller pans equally as deep because they were cheap and I only needed so many worms for just one lizard.)

    Oats, sphagnum moss or bran for substrate ( I used moss..kinda shredded like-how it came, worked great)

    You'll need like 50 Dixie cups (you COULD use 50,000 think more beetles=more worms) with no ridges preferably so they can't climb out and clear wouldn't hurt either so you can see in easily (as long as they're kept in a dark place during pupation.)

    A small piece of old dead tree limb with cracks in it for each pan.( a foot long or whatever fits)

    Go online and buy some supers from crix-n-wiggles.com(got 1000 crickets for $20 DELIVERED this week, was more like 1500!) or flukerfarms.com. I'd get at least 1000 so you have feeders while you wait. (or you could just get 'em from the pet store in the amount you plan to pupate)

    Ok, now that you have the supers it's time to get with the beetles!

    Isolate only 1 worm per dixie cup(think more beetles= more worms) with about an inch or so of substrate in it. Put them in a dark warm place. (shelf in some closet would work) Don't put too much substrate in it or they'll climb out and you'll have worms all over the place. Within the next 2-4 weeks or so you should have the worms turn into pupa and then into beetles. They will be white-ish first then red then black as the new exoskeleton hardens. I always would let them turn at least red before putting them in the pan.

    Well, now you have beetles! So you take all your new bugs and throw them into your first pan. Within 5 minutes TOPS you should see 5-6 pairs going at it, I kid you not! (well maybe not the very first pan but afterward for certain) These are the most prolific things I have ever seen! Rabbits got nothing on these guys!
    They lay their eggs in the cracks in the wood very soon afterward. (no collection or incubation needed here) You might want to wait 2 weeks before you move them to the next pan just to be sure. After that they produce non stop. Week after week, take out the bugs put em in the next pan, they breed, rinse, repeat.
    By the time you get to the 4th pan you should see tiny little worms in the 1st pan. It doesn't look like much but it's more than you think. By the time you get to the last pan you should have hundreds of worms, feeder size, in the first one! It's a bit time consuming but TOTALLY worth it if you need lots of worms. Besides, you can have selection of different sizes for all your animals and supers just don't come that way from the "store".
    At "harvest time" when your supers are full size, empty out the 1st pan and change the substrate, replace the log and start over. You can breed these things this easily to infinity! Sell 'em, eat 'em yourself even! (eww!) Point is, you'll have more than enough worms to feed any number of hungry critters to their full capacity.

    I would also suggest keeping a few worms isolated to replenish your breeding stock as they will die off, be eaten, etc. The beetles themselves also make good feeders for some herps. I've had them go either way on those but they all seem to dig the worms. They eat about the same thing as your dubias-anything. As long as they can get some moisture from food you don't have to "water" them.

    Temps: Provided you keep reptiles, I'd assume you don't live in an ice-box. Room temperature is fine provided your room is fairly warm, 80+ works. Got a nice warm herp room? Get an "el cheapo" shelf and stick 'em in there, they'll be great!

    What do THEY eat?: Well, if you put them in Bran or Oats, they'll eat some of that and if you have picky omnivores/herbivores that don't clean their plate they'll eat that too. Dog/cat food, dry or wet, fruit and veggies are favored over most else, meat, dead mouse, dead bug, giant dead roach nobody wants...be creative!

    The cool thing about these is they last for a very long time when kept together and fed. The last shipment I got of worms must have lasted for 2-3 months!

    The initial investment seems a lot with pans, shelving system(if you go that route), worms, substrate and then like 3 month wait to get to the end result but thousands of FREE worms that cost about 10 cents each (here anyway at the CHEAP pet store!) is a ton of cash in the end saved and happy lizards too!

    If you have any questions I'd be happy to help if I can.
    Have a great day!
    Tree hugging is the truest form of self preservation!
    http://facebook.com/gisartbiz

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Connecticut
    Posts
    1,444

    Default

    Great info!!! I'm not sure I'm ready for breeding them, we don't need that many. I breed Dubia's for the Bearded Dragon's. and buy crickets for the baby BD's.
    1.1 Blue Tegus, 1.1 Cuban Rock Iguanas
    1.1 Bearded Dragons, 0.1 Veiled Chameleon
    0.1 Columbian Boa, 1.0 Ball Python, 0.0.1 Corn

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