In Reply to: Re: mealworm containers, long message posted by Betsycc on March 27, 1999 at 23:06:02:

: : If at all possible don't put your meal worms in plastic, unless you can leave the lid off while they are in your fridge. Plastic or metal, such as coffee cans all sweat and this will cause wet stinky mealworms. The best is to leave them in the cloth bag in the newspaper, the only time they need to be fed is if you leave the bag out for more than 10 min, then it needs to be left out long enough for them to eat and then digest there food before they are put back in a cool place. The worst thing that will happen if they are left out for along time is they will turn into pupae and then int beatles, which gliders will like also. MEALWORMS IF KEPT IN FRIDGE NEED TO BE IN SOMETHING THAT BREATHS. I store mine in a plastic shoe box by a cold window. Dont use a paper shoe box if you intend to leave them out of fridge, they will eat through it, but a cardboard one should work in the fridge. I feed several other critters mealworms and depending on time of year I buy 3000 to 5000. Other than the Grubco mentioned, I know of at least 2 others that give great service, anything that can come in the dead of winter to Montana and be alive are great companies.
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: Hmmm. My gliders are not interested in meal worm beetles.

I too am a small breeder in Minnesota with 7 pair.
I have always kept mealworms in a 9 x 11 x 5" high plastic
container without a top on it. Mealworms cannot climb up a
smooth surface therefore as long as the dry oatmeal is not
close to the top they cannot escape. I buy 2000 at a time
from Natures Way in Ohio along with 2000 crickets. I freeze
the crickets and put em in baggies after they are frozen.
Once a week I take the mealworm container out of the frige
and slice some spuds and apple and toss in a little fresh
spinich as well. I put the container on top of the refriger-
ator for a couple days so the worms can eat. I take out the
fruit, spinish and leave the spuds and put the container
back in the frige. I only lose maybe two or three mealworms
which turn black when they die. I dig through the oatmeal
removing any dead ones.

I feed mealworms one night and crickets the other night,
alternating back and forth therefore cutting down on fat
content since MW are a lot higher in fat content than crickets.

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