Breeding Super Worms - Follow my Journey

Yesterday i decided after doing quite a bit of Internet research that it was time to start my own super worm colony. I have 3 greedy Bearded Dragons that eat crickets, super worms and a whole host of vegetables. I probably spend more money on their food than i do for myself ;)

Super Worms

This blog is designed to tell you exactly how to breed your own Super Worms so i`ll try and be as detailed as possible in all my posts. You will find out what is needed, what to do and how i get on Breeding my first colony of Super worms aka Zophobas morio (darkling beetle). Hopefully i`ll be successful :) but its a learning experience for me too which is what makes it interesting.


15th May 2011 (Day 1)
I separated 6 Super worms, the six biggest in the tub id just bought from my local pet store.  Each of these have been placed in a beaker (No Lid ) and placed in a dark warm place. (My Airing Cupboard). For best results Superworms need to be kept at around 70 -80 Degrees, which is what my airing cupboard is constantly. The reason ive opted for no lids on my beakers is to avoid any moisture problems that can occur in warm areas which would kill the super worms. Just make sure your beakers or containers are tall enough so they cant escape. They were given a healthy feeding of bran and cabbage leafs 24 hours prior to separating them so they should have an adequate supply of food in them to last them during the pupational period.

16th May 2011 (Day 2)
Approximately 24 hours after being placed in my airing cupboard they have started to curl up into a letter c or letter e shape, this indicates that they are ready to start the 2nd change in their lives, with the first one being the egg stage. Once they start to pupate, i`ll take them out of their separate containers and place them in a bigger container together and put another 6 Superworms in to start the whole process again.

Super Worm Pupa - Note the dark coloured Legs

When Superworms first change into a pupa, they will be white all over and as time progresses their legs will darken in colour, when this happens they will again be separated as they are ready to hatch into beetles, and they will be hungry and eat anything thats around them including their siblings.. I will pop them on a small bed of bran so that when they hatch they will have something to eat to get them to full strenth quickly. Again when they first emerge as beetles they will be almost entirely white, there wings will change to red and then they will change to the familiar Black Beetle colour you would expect.

why 6 at a time? well i dont really want all my beetles to come from all the same family bloodline, i dont know if this matters or not but im starting out small anyway and hoping to build up a colony plus i only have limited space in the airing cupboard and these things can take up a lot of space when we get to the beetle stages later on.

At this early stage there isnt that much to see or report on, so i`ll update the blog when i have further news or some new photos.