Breeding Superworms

By Tony West 1-19-04

Superworms are a common food item for insect eating reptiles.
What some people don't know is they can be breed easily at home.
One important thing to know is you should keep your superworm colonies
at a constant 70º-80º F. If you keep them any cooler; in the egg stage, they
will die, in the worm stage, they will die, in the pupae stage, they will
die, and in the beetle stage, they just won't reproduce.

Before you start you need to have a few things:

Superworms (I purchased 1,000 to start my colony)

10 storage boxes

1,000 empty 35mm file canisters

Bag of chicken feed

5# Bag of apples

egg crates (left over from the cricket boxes)

note: You don't have to start out on as large a scale as I did, but you should figure in the fact that you will lose about 50% of your worms before they turn into beetles. You need a colony of 50 to 100 beetles to insure a good ratio of males and females for breeding.

	After you purchase your super worms you need to separate them I use 35mm film canisters. This picture shows a sweater box filled with the film canisters you can fit about 200 canisters per sweater box.
	This is a close-up picture of one of the superworms on the first day that it was put into the canister. Make sure that the worm is moving around in the canister. If the worm is in the canister straight or limp then it is probably dead. You need to remove it. Dead superworms have a very fowl smell, especially, if you have alot of dead ones.
	After a few day to up to 2 weeks the Superworms will curl up. This means they are going to morph into the pupae soon.
	Superworms molt one last time into pupae. This picture shows the worm molting into the pupae.
	This picture shows the pupae. They are in a dormant state at this point and won't eat until the turn into a beetle. They will move if you touch them or the are suddenly exposed to bright light, they wriggle their back end violently.
	The pupae, after a period of 2 to 3 weeks, molt into beetles. When the beetles first molt they are white and soft bodied. They turn a reddish color by 24 hours.
	After the beetles have turned red I put them in a storage box with about 2 cups of chicken feed. I then cut an apple in quarters and scatter the pieces in the bottom, and place an egg crate on top. I put about 100 beetles in each of the storage boxes.
	The apples are what the beetles use for a water source and, they are very "thirsty" after they finish their morph into the beetle. You will need to change the apples every couple of days for the first couple of weeks. I believe this is very important because they don't seem to be interested in anything else except the apples until they get re-hydrated.
	After the beetles get their fill of apples you will see them congregate on the underside of the egg crates. At about dusk they will start moving around more and you will sometimes hear a "clicking" noise. I believe they are nocturnal and breed at night mostly.
	The beetles lay the eggs on the under side of the egg crates. They remain stuck there until they hatch. I believe one of these eggs is already hatched. The eggs are the size of about a half a pin head.
	When the eggs hatch they are mini superworms. They look exactly like the full-grown superworms but they are only a fraction of an inch long and thinner than pencil lead. When you see all the little worms in the bedding you need to move the beetles to a new storage box to start the process over.

Conclusion: If you have the time and patients to start your own breeding colony of superworms you will be rewarded with cheaper herp food bills. It only costs me about $3.00 per bag of apples, that last about 2 weeks, and the original 50 lb. bag of chicken feed ($8.00) has lasted me 6 months and it’s only ½ gone. It costs me less than $8.00 a month for a supply of superworms that is more then enough to feed the insect eating reptiles I own. I used to spend $50.00 a month in just feeder insects to feed the breeders. When I have baby herps I will have all sizes of worms to feed.