
How to Breed Mealworms
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OK here it is people: the BIG book on mealworms. I made it myself with all my photos. This is everything you need to know! my name is Heather and I have been breeding feeders for a few years including waxworms, superworms, silkworms,crickets and more! Meal worms however seem to be the biggest breeding group I have :D.
About Mealworms
Many people use them for reptiles and even other animals. Mealworms are fantastic feeders and there are many reasons why you might want to breed your own, since sometimes it’s hard to find mealworms at a local pet shop and when you do the prices are very high. After getting them you will be uncertain of how well they have been kept along with what they have been fed. Breeding your own mealworms can save you money and give you healthier, happier animals.
First you need a place to store your mealworms. Plastic bin multi-drawer units work very well for storing mealworms. There are many types of these plastic bins and they are just the thing for breeding mealworms. Now since you have your container we can talk about Mealworms!
5000 adult mealworms per drawer is a good number. However I do 10,000 because am running out of room! When choosing to breed mealworms you need to start with a hefty number of them so you can breed enough to feed your animals. 5,000 should be okay for someone with a rather small collection of animals. Remember breeding them takes a LONG time and months of work! It’s better to have extra mealworms to start with! Once you have your worms you need to store them in bedding. This will act as much of their diet and something for them to crawl around in. you can use wheat bran or rolled oats, along with many other forms of wheat and some cereals. There are also beddings made just for mealworms. I find that wheat bran is the best to use. It’s cheap and easy to find at local feed stores or even your own food store. Wheat bran is also tiny enough for your worms to eat and much easier to clean. Pour enough so there is an inch of wheat bran in your bin. 10,000 mealworms will eat just about a cup a day of wheat bran, so I usually begin with 3 cups and then replace it with new wheat bran every 5 days or so.
Cleaning
Your mealworm bins will need little cleaning. Bins should never ever be damp, grow mold, or have a moldy smell to them. Every so often you might need to replace bedding. Do this by taking the bin and 2 other empty bins to a table. Using a kitchen sifter,(this can be found in the kitchen supplies section at your local household store) place a small amount of worms and bedding at a time into the sifter and place it over one of the empty bins. Then shake and vibrate the sifter and you will notice the bedding falling in to the bin and keeping the worms in the sifter. Once cleared of all bedding, toss worms that remain in the sifter into the other empty bin. Repeat this step until all worms are in the other bin. Once you are done you can throw out the material you shook into the empty bin, which is actually poop left over by the worms. This is a good time to take the bin of worms and Hand pick out any food left behind, dead mealworms or pupa. Once the worms are cleaned, fill their other bin back up with New wheat bran then pour them back into their re-stocked bin.
Cleaning the worms Right: The bin I use to clean and handpick stuff out before placing them back into the main bin Middle:the main mealworm bin Left: i use this to sift out the old bedding, or even baby worms.
They love their veggies
Many people try to give the best to their feeders since it will pay off when they give the worms to their animals, and that couldn’t be more true. You should use veggies that are fresh. The number one thing to use and one of my preferred choices are raw potatoes and apples. Many people use other veggies but I find these work best. Raw cut-up potatoes are cheap and easy to find. Just cut them up and share among bins. Keep in mind that if your bins ever seem moist you may have added too much vegetable material. The food can be replaced as often as you feel it is necessary. The least nutritional “food” you can give your mealworms are water crystals: they are great for giving water but do not compare the high amounts of vitamins and such that veggies already have in them.
You can really use a variety of different things, even some carrots or greens. However keep away from peppers, onions, garlic or anything else with a strong flavor.

This is a bin of 10k+ mealworms. There is a whole apple in there and it will be gone by the next day. Remember, do not add too much food.
My mealworms are changing!

Pupae look ugly but they cannot hurt you, so be nice to the pupa because he needs you and you need him...or her.
After a few months of doing this you will begin to see pupae. No don’t worry. Your mealworms are fine. This is a good thing really because it’s the first step towards breeding. See, when you start to see this it would be wise to store about a month’s worth of mealworms in the fridge if you will need some of these mealworms to feed your animals. This will keep them from turning into pupae and you will use this stock while you’re waiting for the next generation. Do not stick them in the freezer! Pick out the pupae when you clean the bins as noted before and place them in another clean bin with no worms. They do not need and food or water However, I place mine on wheat bran because in a week or so they will hatch out into beetles.
The evil scary (darkling) beetle
First off, NO they can’t hurt you. They almost never fly, only when they are starving will they try to fly out of the bin. And you love your beetles right? So let’s feed them. Anyway, the pupa will turn in to beetles. In about a week from there on that bin will be their new home. keep placing new pupae in the bin as the mealworms change over.. These beetles are harmless and even easier to care for. Just feed every so often, the same thing you feed the mealworms. Around week 5 or 6 you should see your first very small babies. If not, wait longer. This can take months. Once you do start seeing very small babies it’s time to clean the bedding like you do with the worms but this time don’t throw anything away. Keep the babies in a new bin and replace the beetles’ bedding with new wheat bran. You can clean their bins again in another 5 weeks. (You can choose to clean more often or even less; this is all up to you). Keep cleaning and feeding your mealworms, beetles, and baby mealworms. Remember, the smaller the better. So what if you can’t see the mealworms very well? They should be super small. This lets them drop through the sifter when you sort out the beetles. Any bigger and it will not work. After you’ve separated the beetles out and you only have baby mealworm in the bin, feed them like all the rest, but remember babies can take months to grow up. The more you feed them the better they will grow.. However it will still make you want to pull out your hair!
Yes that’s a lot of beetles and trust me I have lots more bins to clean….
To separate or to not separate that is the question
Between mealworms, pupae, and beetles things can become a bit harder when you do not separate them. Every life stage will pick the other and even kill no matter how much food you give them. You will have a high death rate on all sides! They will eat one another. Maybe not all… but enough for you to go “Oh my gosh what happened”. It’s better to hand-pick the stages away from other groups. Bedding will stay much cleaner and there will be less of a death rate for pupae. When bins seem too full of whatever it may be or high death rates of beetles it’s a good thing to cull off some or pick out a few good ones. This way you can throw out the dead ones but still have some alive left over. Take a large bin and have a few handfulls at a time on one side then just pick up the live beetles that crawl to the other side. It goes faster if you have a light over them, but not too close or you can kill them.
Be your inner squirrel
The whole life cycle of a mealworm is very long. Even after you have beetles it can take months more to even be able to use the babies. This is why it’s always handy to start off with a lot of mealworms when breeding and to store some mealworms in the fridge. They will go into a dormant state and not turn into pupae, and when you’re all out of mealworms then you can use these mealworms for feeding. So in the end be a smart squirrel and store your mealworms!
Babies! Are we there yet???
After all this time you should see your baby mealworms growing into nice adults Yes it’s been a long road for us all. We have had some very touching moments and are ups and downs but we made it. So let’s not waste any time and feed them to your reptiles!
I hope this helps everyone that would like to breed mealworms what more could you need to know!!!!! 😀
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Heather ShuttVisit Website
Heather Shutt is the owner of crazytailreptiles.com. She breeds leopard geckos, crested geckos, corn snakes and even cave geckos and with all the geckos, breeding mealworms sure comes in handy. Along with the other feeders that she breeds, mealworms seem to be the biggest group she has. Sometimes she has upwards of 50,000 mealworms at a given time! Breeding and caring for reptiles is one of the best talents she has.
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99 Responses
1.1.2015
Hello,
My case is very minor… But i found a mealworm in my yard. I want to breed it but i only have one… I need a ton more i think. But will it survive. He keeps berying himself in the oatmeal. What hould i do?? Mylocal petshop doesnt sell any.. I want to breed them
xoxo
Chantelle
1.1.2015
It’s supposed to bury itself in the oatmeal. If you’re near a Petco or Petsmart they will sell them. You need more to breed them. You should also make sure it really is a mealworm if you found it outside.
1.31.2015
Hello,
I have a bin of mealworm beetles, not sure how many, but they aren’t laying eggs, and even if they were the corn flakes I put in there as substrate I can’t sift, so the babies will never come. If someone could shed some light that would be wonderful.
2.4.2015
The eggs are so small, you probably wouldn’t know whether or not they’re laying eggs. If you leave everything alone, most likely in about 4-6 weeks you’ll be able to see tiny mealworms if you look closely. The alternative is to take the beetles out, put the cornflakes in the blender and powder them and then you’ll be able to sift them.
2.8.2015
Great information and composed as such that is easy to understand and kind of amusing too! We have have a Tiger salamander who has a veracious appetite so breeding our own mealworms might be a good course of action one day.
I was also intrigued by the crazytailreptiles.com website though. When I was deployed to Iraq one of the highlights were the Sand geckos (I’m pretty that’s what kind they were.) I caught one and kept it in a small tote until I left on R&R when I let him go. He was awesome, but anyways, the website didn’t work and doing a search didn’t offer any more success. Where is it?!? Thanks
2.9.2015
Reptile breeders come and go and so do their websites. I guess this one went.
4.6.2015
The best post about mealworms I read upto now. I’m growing mealworms for about six months now. Upto now I’ve only been busy getting my number of beatles up but this week it’s harvest time. Do you have some tips about harvesting them? I now let them climb up a few pieces of paper and at the end of the paper, they fall into a small container. This way I get really clean mealworms but it’s a slow process.
I seperate the different life stages too and I found out that this is the way to go. You say you only move the beatles every 5 weeks or so. I tried three weeks, two weeks en one week and I found that you get much, much more baby worms when you move the beatles every week. Another great advantage is that all the mealworms you harvest are about the same size. It takes up a lot of space because you’ll need a lot of containers but I seriously reccommend this way.
I tried putting a screen underneth the beatles so the eggs can fall trough. This works fine but I find it easier to sift al the beatles out every week with a big seive. I take a new container and sift all the bedding with the eggs through and then fill the old container with wheat bran and some flower. After that I put the beatles back in. This takes me about a minute per container. I store new eggs in a warm place (32C or 90F) and after a week or two you can see tiny movement in the container. That’s the time I start feeding them and move them to a cooler place of 28 degrees Centigrade or 80 Fahrenheid.
4.23.2015
May I know how long the adults live? There are varying answers online. Some webbies said a few months, some said a few years?
Also, do the adults start mating as soon as they are adults?
Thanks
4.23.2015
In my experience, adult beetles live for up to several months, possibly less. I have no idea when they begin to mate since it’s not something I’ve ever observed. I would imagine that they are essentially adults as soon as they emerge as beetles and should be capable of mating.
4.24.2015
My experience is about the same as Aliza’s. I’d say they live about two months, maybe a bit longer. A cycle from eggs to a full grown mealworm takes about nine weeks. I didn’t add new beatles in the first cycle and more than half of them had died by the time the first new beatles were ready. Now I leave a few hundred mealworms every week to pupate, so I have fresh beatles all the time.
4.26.2015
Thank you soooo much for not just your very prompt reply but also such very clear answers Aliza n Arjan! ♡
5.19.2015
I am writing a young adult novel that takes place in 1950. There is a small scene where the two characters take care of meal worms. I have used your info here to construct that scene, but since I know nothing about mealworms, I’m not sure I’ve written it correctly. Would you be willing to read it and see if I’ve represented it correctly? If so, could you reply to me via email? Thank you so much!
7.23.2015
I just wanted to say that I have been breeding mealworms for about 5 months and I separate all the life stages. I was wondering and I see other people are wondering also if the beetles start breeding right away or not and I can say I know for sure that they DO since I check my pupae container daily and sometimes I skip one day but no more and a couple weeks ago I noticed I had babies in with them so they had to breed right away for this to be possible. So I hope this helps and Thank you too!
8.9.2015
Dear all once again,
How long do you think the adults will live without moisture eg water or fresh vegetables especially in hot climate? I be going away for a month but not sure if I should be keeping any adults during that time when temperature can soar to 40 to 45 degree Celsius for almost the whole month I be away? I mean I can feed them fresh veg on the day before departure but they be without water for one whole month in that temperature. Will they even survive?
Thanks again
8.9.2015
If you have a basement you could put them in there. Otherwise, it seems you have nothing to lose, so give them some veggies, go away, and see what you have when you come back.
9.10.2015
I just want to tell everyone that is trying to give it mealworms water or moisture without all the issues that come with the gel and stuff, I use newspaper and get a NEW spray bottle that has a fine mist I find the smaller ones have a finer mist than the large ones, and then once or twice a day depending on how hot and dry the conditions are spray them on the paper not the bedding and they go crazy for it and sometimes they will even eat all the wet paper if they r very thirsty. I also found that this helps with molting and prevents them getting stuck in there skin. They also grow ALOT faster with moisture. Give it a try and let me know how it works for u!!!
9.10.2015
I just want to tell everyone that is trying to give it mealworms water or moisture without all the issues that come with the gel and stuff, I use newspaper and get a NEW spray bottle that has a fine mist I find the smaller ones have a finer mist than the large ones, and then once or twice a day depending on how hot and dry the conditions are spray them on the paper not the bedding and they go crazy for it and sometimes they will even eat all the wet paper if they r very thirsty. I also found that this helps with molting and prevents them getting stuck in there skin. They also grow ALOT faster with moisture. Give it a try and let me know how it works for u!!!
If u or anyone u know needs mealworms in the everett wa area let me know. Text 425-418-4700
2.23.2016
Why do mealworms like bran? apart from the fact that they can burrow? what nutritional values does it have?
2.23.2016
If you look up the nutritional value of bran, you’ll see that its biggest value is the fiber and carbohydrate. It does have some protein, magnesium, protein and iron. It’s not that the mealworms love bran so much, it’s that the places that produce and provide the mealworms find bran to be cheap, easy to acquire and easy to put through a strainer when separating the bran from the mealworms. I keep my mealworms in a multi-grain gut load which I think is much better for them and much more nutrition for the geckos.
3.1.2016
Wheat bran is cheaper and easier and it doesn’t mold as easily as the oatmeal or corn flakes… I have been breeding them for almost a year and I have been thru a lot so if u need any more help u can message me on Facebook my name is Amanda parham! Goog luck!
3.7.2016
Mmm, I don’t quite agree with Aliza. Wheat bran is cheap, easy to acquire and easy to put through a strainer when separating the bran from the mealworms. So far so good. After experimenting for over a year with lots of different foods I found out that wheat bran is by far the best en easiest food you can give them. But that there’s more to it. I found out that micro organisms are the most important factor in the diet of mealworms and not so much the brans you feed them.
The worms aren’t all that picky about their food but what they eat makes a big difference in how fast they will grow. I’ve tried lots of things like carrots, horse food, different brans, sugar beet pulp, rabbit food.. Even soaked paper and saw dust. And guess what: I had the best results with soaked wheat bran. And as I said earlier. It’s not so much the type of bran you feed them but wheat bran can hold a ton of water and it won’t mold. So that’s one of the reasons I think it’s perfect.
I read somewhere that mealworms live in rotting wood in their natural environment. That got me thinking. The nutricial value of wood is very little but there is a huge amount of micro organisms in it. So I started experimenting with sour dough. There are lots of micro organisms in sour dough and I tried it for a while. The worms just loved it. They grew like crazy and didn’t pupate as quickly, so I got bigger worms.
The thing about sour dough is, that it’s a bit sticky and it will dry out quite hard. Sometimes when I feeded the mealworms too much, they would get stuck in the dried lumps of food. So I kept on experimenting. I started mixing chicks meal with soaked wheat bran and a bit of dextrose to get things going faster. This was a big step forward. The corn meal doesn’t stick as much as flour so I haven’t had any mealworms “frozen” in their food anymore but the sour dough just wasn’t as good as it was before.
I’m not done experimenting yet but the last couple of weeks I’ve been making some kind of sour dough, sour mash like thing. Every day I feed half of the food to my mealworms and the rest of the food, I mix with fresh water, dextrose and wheat bran and let it ferment over night. The next morning it smells like cheap wine. The mealworms love it and I’m sure that’s got something to do with the alcohol produced in the mixture. I’m not sure if this is the way to go but the base of my food is still wheat bran after all this time.
3.7.2016
Not being a nutritionist or having experimented to the extent you have, I bow to your greater experience!
3.8.2016
Hi Aliza,
No need to bow, I’d rather have people disagreeing with me because I usually learn a lot from a good discussion. If we all agree with each other, there’s noting to talk about, really.
I’m always experimenting with things because I know that when I think I found the best way to do something, there’s always a better way. I hope there’s somebody out there, who will pick up from where I stoppend and help us all by sharing his or her experience.
3.9.2016
okay heres my question i have a couple hundred left but i feed my geckos (i have ten leos) every 3 days or so heres my question can i use the left over baby oatmeal (its got lots of nutrients and my daughter has outgrown it shes on big people foods now) and could i expect a good outcome atleast a doubling up if i were to say put 30 of my current mealworms and all pupae i find(i keep mine in the fridge currently) i mean im feeding around 70 every 3 days so they go quick and i really need to get the numbers up i assume keeping them warm(I LIVE IN MOBILE ALABAMA RAINIEST CITY IN THE U.S.but its warm) increases there transitioning i mean i rarely add any extra food other than the oatmeal i currently use(i add a potato for 3 days once a month) thats normal dollar for a lil barrel stuff i add a bit of calcium powder each time i return my dusted worms to the bin but if i let 30 or so turn and feed them only the best nutrient rich baby oatmeal and keep them loaded down with fresh taters could i expect atleast 100 out of them i mean if i can make a years worth of work end up within a steady flow that doesnt dwindle below 1000 usable worms its worth it
3.10.2016
The oatmeal should be OK. You can add leftover veggie peels like cucumber peels, broccoli stalks, etc. Follow the directions in the article and you will do well with 30 beetles to start out. The newly hatched worms will be very small at first and you may not see them but trust they’re there and they’ll get bigger. You may be able to produce enough to feed all your geckos. I am usually feeding upwards of 30 hatchlings during the summer and I can’t keep up with them, so I buy mealworms to supplement.
4.18.2016
Ok i got meal worms,now i have pupa, one beatle. My question is do i put pupa and bealtes together and do i feed pupa? Do i put oatmeal in beatles and do i feed beatles the same as mealworms
4.19.2016
Pupae don’t need to eat. If you put them in with the beetles (remember the “Beatles” is a rock group from the 60’s) the beetles will eat them. I keep pupae, beetles and mealworms separate as much as possible.
5.11.2016
Hi there knowledgeable ones,
So we have geckos and they came with some meal worms. A cousins suggest I breed the worms to save costs on buying… great! So I’ve read up and have got pupae, I’ve separated them into a separate container from the meal worms and thought I was going great… reading that the darker each stage is the closer it is to the next… until I read that if pupae go black – they’re dead (enter sad face) – is this true? What am I doing wrong – help!!!
5.11.2016
Are they all black? It’s not unusual for some portion to turn black, it happens to me all the time. They don’t exactly get darker and darker, they just get a bit darker and less “squishy”. Keep trying and if every single one turns black then maybe there’s a problem with the temperature or the humidity.
5.11.2016
Thanks Aliza,
No not all are black – but I have lost track at which ones are older / newer. Hopefully I gain some viable beetles soon!
I’ll keep you posted. I’m only a week into this mealworm breeding thing 😉
5.14.2016
It takes time. It should work out but you’re not going to have anything to see for a few months.
6.3.2016
When I purchased my meal worms they were moving more than they are now. They seem sluggish even though I have them in a warm place and give them carrots for moisture. What is the temperature and humidity level suppose to be?
6.3.2016
Just before mealworms are ready to morph into their pupae form (often called “aliens” because they look kind of like ET) they stop moving. I found out recently that they are in the pre-pupal stage where they’ve taken in enough nutrients to morph and are just waiting for the right time. If you keep them in a warm place, they will grow faster and get to this stage faster. They can live at refrigerator temps, though they go dormant at those temps. The warmer they are, the faster they develop. Too much humidity isn’t good because the gut load can start to clump and obstruct their airways and also higher humidity seems to result in a grain mite infestation.
6.4.2016
Thank you, that’s good information about the humidity. I started them in our bathroom but think the humidity from the shower may have been too much, so I removed them to our dark closet but they still seem like they are dying. If I purchased them from a pet store and they were kept in the fridge before I bought them are they likely to die when I put them in a farm?
I bought two different sizes so I would have different timing on the stage but both stages are acting sluggish. I don’t see any parasites on them so I don’t think that is the problem. Any ideas as to why both stages (small and large) are acting like they are dying?
6.4.2016
Had pupa today. That must have been part of the problem. I still don’t know about the younger stage but I’m sure time will tell. Thanks for your help!
6.4.2016
What kind of bedding are you keeping them in?
6.4.2016
Quick Oats. It’s Western Family. Would that matter? I put carrots in with them but they perked up when I took them out of the humid room and took the carrots away. I’ll give them some more in a few days, but for now I think they needed to dry out a bit. Do you think this is right?
6.5.2016
If it’s working, go for it!
6.18.2016
Hi. I’m new at this, and just a dozen mealworms have recently hatched into beetles…one was newly hatched and light brown when I found it, and then turned dark. I’ve separated them and put them into their own place as soon as discovered, with food, watersponge, etc.. But I think they’re dead. They don’t move at all, except at first to go hide under a banana peel. Since then, nothing. What could be wrong? I bought the mealworms from a petshop a week ago, the mealworms seem fine. Are the beetles simply hiding quietly, or is this the end of them? The newly hatched one moved a lot as I moved him in with the adults, but now…black and immobile.
6.20.2016
I wish I could help. They do die after about a month or so, and if they all hatch at about the same time, they die at the same time, so it looks like a plague, but a week isn’t that long. What are you feeding them?
6.20.2016
Susie, is it warm or cold where you have them? Cool areas will see beetles and larva that don’t move around too much and develop pretty slowly; hotter areas can be good, but too hot will fry ’em. 🙁 A lot of times I find beetles which are completely intact (dead ones tend to be lighter weight and have broken antennae), completely immobile, but with a little shake and a minute or so seem to ‘wake up’ and wave their antennae, then move around.
Hiding is rather their default mode–try a sheet of newspaper over the surface of the bin and you may see more movement.
10.10.2016
Hi all, I have one doubt. What is the next stage of beetle. Is this flyable. What is the life span of this beetle. Please share…
10.10.2016
I have rarely seen these beetles flying. They seem to live about a month or so after morphing into beetles.
12.11.2016
Corn flakes? How could anyone give something like that to something that requires nutrition? Look at the ingredients. How people even buy this to eat is beyond comprehension.
12.11.2016
I’m not the author of this article (and maybe the author will respond), but I will say that sometimes appropriate nutrition for bugs/worms does not map directly on to our nutrition. Of course, ideally, a good nutrition source for mealworms and beetles would be a variety of grains, fruits and vegetables. Corn flakes, however, does provide sugar (less sugar than some of the highly sweetened cereals), grain and a variety of vitamins and minerals. I was surprised to discover in my related research that some feeders derive protein from celery and other cellulose products!
1.17.2017
started wirh 3 dozen .had 100s now all i have js bugs in two totes 2 10 gallon tankx a 30 gallon barell no meal wormx arecthe bugs eat7ng the eggs do i need to ge rid of mort of the bugs thanks butch
1.17.2017
Do you mean you had hundreds of mealworms and now you have none? Or you had hundreds of bugs and you still don’t have mealworms? If the mealworms disappeared, I don’t know what to tell you; my bugs co-exist with my mealworms with no problems. If you mean that you don’t see any mealworms, there’s a good chance that there are a lot of tiny mealworms in there. Look at the gut load really carefully and see if you can see it heaving around.
1.22.2017
Why avoid garlic & onions?
12.27.2017
Hi,
Thanks for all the useful information:)
I started my mealworm breeding today, and I hope I’ll have good results!!!
I am in Canada (Montrealj), and I must say that I had difficulties finding wheat bran in bulk here…
If anybody could recommend a place to buy affordable wheat bran somewhere in the area???
If not, I ofter go to the states (New-York, Vermont), if someone could point me in the right direction, I would appreciate:)
Thanks!