
Breeding Superworms: A guide to raising and breeding superworms
In today’s economy we are all searching for ways to save money. Breeding your own feeders is one of the best ways. For the past several years I’ve been breeding superworms for all my geckos. It’s a fairly simple process and with some time and patience you can raise your own feeders.
Stages of life
Superworms have 4 stages of life: egg, larva, pupae and beetle. The beetles are the only ones that reproduce. Breeding superworms is very similar to that of mealworms but with one difference. They will need to be separated individually so they can pupate. If you keep them together you will never obtain beetles to start another generation. Superworms grow slowly and it can take 5 months or longer (depending on the temperature you keep them at) to become large enough to start the “morphing” process. Pupation is an essential process and the only way to obtain beetles for breeding. I keep all stages of superworms at a temperature between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Metamorphosing superworms
Choose the largest superworms possible and place a single worm into an empty 35mm film container. I’ve found film containers work best as they require very little space. Due to the digital era they are becoming harder to find but I’ve always had good luck at the Wal-Mart and Costco photo centers. If you can’t get them you can always use plastic bead boxes for crafts, baby food jars etc.
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Leave the superworm in the empty film container with no food or water. Adding food or water to the film container prolongs the time it takes them to pupate and makes a bigger workload for you. As long as they are very large larva you should have very few to no deaths.
After several days the worms will become dormant and begin curling to a letter “c” or “e”. This is the start of the morphing process. Any superworms that are straight looking, hard or black are probably dead. The process from larva to pupae takes 1 to 2 weeks.
Superworm pupa
Once the worm has pupated it will look like a white or cream colored “alien” as most people call them. This is their third stage of life. You can either leave them in the film container or place them all in a separate container. I remove mine and place them in a separate container as it saves space and then you can start another larva in the film container. When their legs turn darker in color you’ll know a beetle is about to emerge. The process from pupae to beetle takes about 2 weeks.
Superworm beatles
Before removing these beetles you need to put together a new breeding container. I use trays that are (14” x 10” x 3.5”). You can use really any type of container such as Rubbermaid and Sterilite but I’ve found cat litter pans to be most effective. Add about 1 inch of wheat bran or a pre-made gutload to the bottom of the container. The beetles will eat and lay their eggs in this. Try not to use coarse bedding such as oats unless you blend it to a powder. This will make it easier to separate the superworms later for cleaning or feeding your animals. In one corner I add a small piece of egg crate so the beetles have a place to gather. Otherwise they may wander through the container digging up eggs and eating them. You may now move the beetles to this container. Offer potatoes, carrots, fruits or water crystals as a water source. Moisture is extremely important for the beetles just as it is for the superworms themselves. A lack of moisture will result in beetles preying on eggs, newly hatched babies and other beetles.
About every 2 to 4 weeks (depending on how many beetles you have in one container) remove the beetles from the bedding and place them in a fresh container as described above. This allows the eggs to hatch and furthers your chances of obtaining more babies. If the beetles are left they will prey on the eggs and possibly the newly hatched larva. The newly hatched worms could do the same with each other. Adult beetles can live up to 5 months with a female laying nearly 500 eggs in her lifetime.
Raising baby superworms
The key to hatching is heat and most importantly moisture. For the babies I keep the temperature around 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Add small chunks or slices of potato, carrot, apples etc on the bedding surface. This will provide moisture for the newly hatched babies. Once the babies grow larger you can use water crystals if you wish.
That’s it, you’ve bred superworms!
Congratulations! You have now successfully completed your first breeding cycle. It will take time before your colony is established but once it is you’ll have a continuous supply of superworms!
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Cody Castellanos is the owner of Pro Geckos and works with various gecko species including leopard, fat tails and Nephrurus. He also stocks a full line of supplies to meet all your needs.
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For the past several years I've been breeding superworms for all my geckos. It's a fairly simple process and with some time and patience you can raise your own feeders.
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317 Responses
8.1.2017
Do you know how to breed fruit flies
8.3.2017
I’m sure if you google “breeding fruit flies” you’ll find out.
8.20.2017
I find those little white aliens after supers have escaped my dragon… flush them!!!! Found a couple of the black beetles also…. went swimming too….
8.22.2017
Great article thank you, giving this a try!
8.24.2017
Reconsider flushing the beetles. You can save money by breeding the beetles, making your own superworm colony. Also, your dragons will enjoy eating the beetles if you don’t want to breed them.
What white aliens are you referring to? White superworms? When they are white, they are at their most nutritious stage for your dragon. The same goes for the beetles, when in their alien morph stage. The morphs are very nutritious for your dragon.
8.24.2017
Female beetles are rounder at their bottom. Male beetles are more pointed at their bottom. It can be hard to tell.
9.28.2017
What size should the super worms be to separate?
9.29.2017
Choose the biggest , fattest worms you can find, approx 4-5cm long ..in inches , it will be about 2 inches long.
10.7.2017
You can buy bulk film canisters on Amazon for anyone who is interested in using them 🙂
10.16.2017
If you don’t want to buy film canisters you can get clear jello cups with lids at a dollar store also
10.18.2017
Great advice! Have some supers separated too pupate and ready to go. I have feeder colonies of hissing roaches,Dubia roaches and regular mealworms. Never could figure out how to get the supers going. Now I see separating them too pupate is the key. Gotta raise yer own feeders when u have as many geckos,dragons,tarantulas and scorpions as I do. Also if ones finding it hard to acquire film canisters and u live in a state where marijuana is legal and you frequent marijuana dispensaries I suggest using leftover flower containers instead of throwing em out. Same size as film canisters with snap on lids. Some may have moral objections to said suggestion but the containers work perfect for my supers and even spiderlings and scorplings as well if you raise and breed arachnids.
11.5.2017
I have a colony of beetles in a plastic container and they are always moving around but I do not see any eggs. How big are the eggs? I am ready to give up on this
11.5.2017
The eggs are pretty tiny. It may take awhile, but, if it’s working, eventually when you look really closely at the substrate you will see tiny things moving. I’m not the person who wrote the article, but I will tell you that my personal experience of trying to breed super worms in a powdered grain substrate with added veggies was a total bust (though it worked great for my mealworms). What worked really well was when I was breeding super worms in my bioactive enclosure. In that case the substrate was eco earth and I kept a shallow container of grain in the enclosure, which I removed during the daily misting. I think what made it work so well was the humidity and the substrate which gave them the opportunity to burrow (and to pupate, since they could be somewhat isolated). I had to change the arrangement because the super worms were biting the tail of one of my geckos, but if I were to breed super worms again, I’d recreate that situation: eco earth substrate with good drainage, misted daily, with grain stations “on the side”.
11.15.2017
What do u put the baby superworms in
11.15.2017
They should be kept in a substrate of powdered grain so they can eat and you can sift them out to feed them to the geckos.
11.16.2017
Thank you so much for all the info! You have saved me from spending so much money!
11.30.2017
Christine,
To breed fruit flies peel a banana and leave it on your kitchen counter. While you are waiting for the fruit flies to beam in from their home planet Drosos, gather up some spider silk and start weaving a tiny net. Attach the net to the end of a kitchen match with the head removed. Place a small flashlight so that it illuminates the area immediately above the banana. Take a clean empty olive jar and place a small piece of banana in the bottom. Place a comfortable stool next to the counter. Now have a seat and wait, holding you net just outside the flashlight’s beam. When a fruit fly appears in the beam, scoop it up in your net. Then place it in the olive jar. When you have enough flies, place the jar in the refrigerator to chill them. Then empty the chilled flies out for your pet, a few at a time. Be sure to replace the banana on your kitchen counter every couple of weeks. Now you have a working fruit fly colony, and an easy means to feed your pets.
1.4.2018
I know you have to separate them to begin the pupa stage, but after they’ve become pupae can you put them all back together?
1.4.2018
Cody may reply as well, but in my experience you can have the pupae together, but if they’re in with the beetles the beetles may eat them.
1.8.2018
If you put them in containers do you still need to poke holes?
1.20.2018
I have had my Beetles breeding for a very long time it seems. I use oats And smaller meal for them to lay exam and they hang out In sections of egg crate. I looked tonight
And I see what appears to be millions of tiny tiny crawling things I mean these things are so small They’re like less than a millimeter long… Our baby super worms that small?There are lots of these things crawling around and they are so tiny I can barely see them. I hope they are super worms and not something else
1.20.2018
They are either super worms or grain mites. If it looks as if the whole area is heaving, it’s grain mites. If you have a magnifier, take a look. The grain mites are round and the super worms are long. Here’s a Gecko Time article about grain mites: http://www.geckotime.com/how-i-got-rid-of-grain-mites/
1.25.2018
You can put all the pupae together. Just remove the beetles as they emerge so they don’t cause any problems.
1.31.2018
I’ve tried raising my own worms in the past but I ran into some trouble with the beetles. The worms were fine but I could never seem to get the beetles to lat more than 2-3 weeks. I could never figure out why. They were fed well enough and had the proper bedding. I thought it may be the temperature. My house normally is set 68 degrees in the night time but other than that I’m out of ideas. Any thoughts for why this is happening?
2.1.2018
Hopefully Cody will respond to you as well. I have limited experience breeding super worms but every time I kept the beetles in grain gutload they died pretty quickly. My best success was keeping them in my African Fat tail gecko cage which had eco earth as a substrate. I misted the enclosure every day and I kept a small container of gutload in the enclosure (I would remove it when misting)for them to eat. The beetles did well and produced plenty of super worms. I had to get rid of them because they were eating one of the geckos’ tails. If I were to do it again, I’d get a 10 gallon tank, put about 2″ of eco earth with a drainage layer on the bottom, put in some things for them to crawl under and leave some jar lids of gutload and mist daily.
2.8.2018
wheat bran is the substrate you need to use.
2.13.2018
I have super worms that I morphed back in Oct and didn’t have any issues with them becoming beetles. They’re eating and breeding non-stop and haven’t had any die, however I haven’t gotten any babies. Any suggestions as to why would be awesome!
2.13.2018
I wonder if there’s any chance the beetles are eating the eggs or the babies.
2.14.2018
Just a quick question..What moisture source do you provide and how often ? If there is no source of moisture , or not enough , the beetles will eat the eggs..and even the newly hatched baby worms because that will be the only moisture they can find.
2.14.2018
Aliza it could be possible that they’re eating the eggs. I was also wondering if it could be the low humidity and or temperature. I keep my house around 70* and it’s dry where I live especially during winter.
2.14.2018
I would put vegetable parings in with adult super worms and also did the same when I was breeding mealworms: eggplant peels, broccoli stems, pieces of zucchini and orange peels for example.
2.16.2018
I have carrots, sliced of potatoes, and celery in their bin
2.16.2018
I have carrots, sliced of potatoes, and celery in their bin. I’ll definitely try adding more water source. I’ve added a misted paper towel in the past that they seem to like and gather at.
3.30.2018
How long can you keep the larvae together before they die?
3.31.2018
Since I tend to buy my super worms in bulk and use them up, I have no idea. I’d imagine at least a few months. Perhaps the author will see this and respond (though realize that the article was written a long time ago).
4.2.2018
Thanks, Aliza.
I managed to find out from another website that they will live as larvae for 6 months to a year.
4.2.2018
Thanks for letting me know!
4.13.2018
Thank you so very much for this information!! Have my supers in containers now, so we will see how it goes!
4.30.2018
How do you keep them warm enough? My husband keeps our house fairly cool.
4.30.2018
They may mature faster if they’re kept warmer, but in general, if the house is tolerable for humans it’s probably OK. For extra warmth, if you want, you could look into a ceramic heat emitter.
5.7.2018
How do you know when the beetles are breeding? (I know, sounds silly but I really do not know.) Thank you!
5.7.2018
Judy, u won’t be able to miss it. It looks like dogs doing the deed.
5.7.2018
haha – Thanks so much Rebecca. I think I’m familiar with that! Can’t wait to get home tonight and look for the ‘signs.’ 😉
6.29.2018
I want to th Lank you all for the information provided here. I went in on shipping with a friend and bought super worms in bulk for my rats as treats. Since I had so many, I figured it would be a fun science experiment for my kids to see if I could breed them. Today, I saw my first baby in the substrate I removed my beetles from about a week ago. I keep my worms and beetles in the sterlite drawer systems. They are easy to keep organized and easy to clean. When I first had the beetles together they were just in a small Tupperware container with oats that I powdered in the blender. I’ve been sharing my video of my babies with everyone I know and so far, nobody is excited but me. Ah well. Thanks for the information!
7.28.2018
Dear sir.
No one says which Darkling beetle is used for the super worms, as they are not the same Darkling to breed the smaller mealworms.
What do you say.
Danny
7.29.2018
The super worms are Zophobas morio and the mealworms are Tenebrio molitor. Let Google be your friend! The mealworm beetles are about 1/2″ long and the superworm beetles are much wider and about 1″ long.
7.29.2018
Catrina – I would be happy to watch your video! Also, thanks for the tip of grinding oats in the blender!
I am happy to report that I have been successful in breeding Supers; thanks to this site and one other. Kudos to Cody for sharing this information!!
From my experience, what Cody says about “The key to hatching is heat and most importantly moisture.” is the right on point! In the beginning, I had some trouble, but then I tried a heating pad that I used to use for my beardies and boy did that do the trick!!
I used a setup similar to this http://www.beardies.info/supers/supers.html
Good luck to all!
10.6.2018
My Pupae (super worm) are turning to beetles now how long before they start to lay eggs. Then how often do I change out the beetles when laying eggs to grow the Larva or Super worms.
11.4.2018
was curious as well as to how long it takes a “new” black beetle to mature and start laying eggs.
12.23.2018
How do you grow superworms egg to larvae. I have difficulty growing.