Mini Mealworms

[Mack O B]

I have been trying to breed some mini mealworms for my finches but am not having any success. I have breed normal mealworms before but these minis seem difficult. Has anyone bred them successfully and can you offer any suggestions on how to breed them.

[GregH]

Are the mini's you want a different species, ealy instars or just a small strain? Each are suitable as min-mealworms but they have slightly different cultural requirements. In the Philippines iI can only get superworm (Zophobas morio) and the regular meal worm (Tenebrio molitor) but there is a smaller cousin available overseas sold as the mini mealworm (Tenebrio obscurus). I don't know much about the last species so I can't comment on it's culture but I suspect it's similar to the others.

I use super worms for my sugar gliders and find it cheaper to purchase early instars than their full-grown siblings and grow them up so the first method is to find out what people are selling. If you are growing your own then it is essential to limit the time the adults spend in the culture medium so that the eggs are all laid within a short window so that you can carefully control the age. This means you've gotr to have many containers going and not leaving the adults in breeding boxes for more than a 3-4 days before they are removed. After the young are the size you want then feed them off. The trick with superworms is that they don't pupate unless you separate the lavae into individual chambers/cells.

Establishing a smaller strain of any species is also possible with careful selection. With meal-worms the easiest time to pick the smaller individuals is after they pupate. Unless you've got access to an analytical balance you won't be able to do this by weight but it's fairly easy to pick the small ones by eye. These ones can be selected out as the breeding stock for the next generaton. A few rounds of seletive breeding and you will end up with a strain that is considerably smaller than the one you starded with.

As for general culture of mealworms there are older threads on this site that will tell you how to grow your own.

[Mack O B]

Thanks for the info Greg, I hadn't thought of selective breeding from the golden mealworm (tenebrio molitor). I bought a small container of 50 mini mealworm (Tenebrio obscurus) and was going to try to breed these but no one here is forthcoming with info. They are in short supply over here and at about 50 cent a worm are expensive to be feeding in large numbers. I just thought i'd try breeding them for my own supply for now.

[Mickp]

all I do is breed normal meal worm but feed them to the birds when they are approx 1/2" in length.
have found that once bigger than 1/2" it is mainly the parrot finches & diamonds that eat them

[GregH]

I couldn't find anything specicically on T.obscurus but many sites say that culture is the same for all species. A reliable documet can be found at http://home.earthlink.net/~fredsheepbre ... lworms.htm. I feed mine chicken starter grits and for moisture I give carrot (top-end) and bananna peel. For the superworms I find that I have to mix it into pine shavings to keep them happy. With the small T.obscurus it will be important to use a finely ground food like wheat bran or pollard so you can sift out the worms easily.

[triplea]

Mick
Any chance of a picture of your setup.
Any tips?

[Diane]

There was a raffle prize of a mealworms breeding box at the Enfield sale. That was first on my list if my number had been called out.

[BENSONSAN]

Mack read this http://www.finchsociety.org/cfa/livefood/mealies.htm