# darkling beetles



## CoffeeKat (Jan 15, 2014)

I finally assembled my feces and got my mealworm farm set up, but there's a question I can't seem to find the answer to: when the mealworms turn into aliens, do I have to dig through the the substrate to find them, or will they migrate to the top so I can separate them?


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

My experience is that the worms will usually come to the surface to pupate.


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## CoffeeKat (Jan 15, 2014)

Thanks, that's the answer I was hoping for  I would like to think that I have better things to do than dig through a box of worms with a spoon every day (but nah...I really don't. Still, though...)


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## Kalandra (Aug 25, 2008)

You are welcome. I'm sure some will stay under, but my colonies usually have a ring around the edge of worms preparing themselves to pupate, and pupa. I don't bother separating them as I have two colonies and they produce plenty of worms.

If you ever want to try giving an extra special treat, find a pupa that is very white. Those are newly pupated and are extremely soft. My hedgehogs like those a lot. I had an old toothless gal who couldn't eat worms anymore. We discovered that she could still chew up the white pupaes. And I swear it made her smile.


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## CoffeeKat (Jan 15, 2014)

That made ME smile. Yep, the whole reason I decided to farm these things is that we accidentally had a darkling beetle hatch and LuLu got really excited. Also fed her an alien and she gobbled it up and begged for more. I tried to find a source to buy darkling beetles and was not successful so I decided I'd better get started raising some myself. She will eat these things faster than I can produce them, so rather than farming mealworms I guess I'm farming aliens and beetles.


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## tony21 (Apr 8, 2014)

I also have 2 colonies, I started out separating them in to another bin to become beetles ( hence why I now have 2 ). It became to much work so I gave up, now I just through some food in there once or twice a week, and pull out enough mealies for a week. Sometimes ill pull out some alians, and a beetle or 2 to feed. 

Also it will take you probably the better part of 3 to 4 month to get a sustainable Colonie, maybe longer. They are stupid easy to care for, and once you have one going you will never run out. Good luck!:grin:


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## DesireeM81 (Jun 14, 2014)

Yep, I did not realize how long it would take to get a colony going. Boy howdy. I think I started mine mid August or so and my mealworms babies are still the tiniest things on the planet.


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## tony21 (Apr 8, 2014)

DesireeM81 said:


> Yep, I did not realize how long it would take to get a colony going. Boy howdy. I think I started mine mid August or so and my mealworms babies are still the tiniest things on the planet.


yes it took almost 6 months, before I started seeing good progress. I had to dump one colonies about a year ago, because of mites. I then switched from oats to wheat bran!

I also lost my super worm colonies twice to them as well. I ended up just getting rid of them after that, to much work( mostly just got sick of getting nowhere loo )!:roll:

also for the op if I were you I would use wheat bran, and not oats! You will never get mites that way:grin:


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