This morning as I was going through the CUC enclosures, I noticed a light tan colored beetle stumbling about the Mealworm ranch! This is the 1st one I had seen, and some gentle rooting around through the substrate revealed two more beetles, darker brown in color than the first. Soon these beetles will breed and …
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CUC Spotlight: The mealworm ranch
Mealworms are the insect food I’m most familiar with, having owned several anoles and house geckos as pets as a child. I was not well informed on how to raise or care for the mealworms or the reptiles, and kept the mealworms in a deli dish in the refrigerator, packed in bran. I eventually found …
More isopods arrive
My order from Smug Bug arrived yesterday and all the cultures look to be in mostly good shape. They’ve been released into their new enclosures, including some new, shallower and wider plastic tubs than what I’d used previously. These new tubs should provide more floorspace for the isopods while reducing unused headroom in the containers. …
Morio worm ranch is vacant already
I’m guessing my Morio worms (Super worms) were just really “ready to pop” when I bought them at the pet store a couple weeks ago. From my research, after a week of reconstituing themselves after life in a refrigerator and allowing them to gorge on oats and banana, I expected 2-3 weeks for them to …
Pupas in the house
Just one day after moving the Super worms into their pupating chambers I found one out of the 48 had already pupated! Now, 3 days later I have 3 Super worm pupas. A new “Morio Beetle” enclosure has been set up with oats and some expired cream of wheat that we had on hand, and …
A week with the worms
It’s been a week since I brought home the mealworms and morio worms. They’ve been wallowing in tubs of corn meal and quick oats, eating bits of bananas, squash, and egg shell. Today, I noticed my first mealworm pupa, and after a little digging around I uncovered three more. This prompted me to go ahead …
More research, more isopods
After another couple of days of research, I’ve found some resources specific to isopods that can thrive in arid environments, and have ordered another 4 varieties of isopods to farm: Porcellio dilatatus ‘Giant Canyon’ – apparently this variety can grow over 3/4″ long, enough to earn the mantle of ‘giant’ in the isopod world Cylisticus …
Zebras and Springtails
In my latest trip the local pet store for more supplies, I picked up a culture of Zebra isopods and a batch of springtails as well. The two existing isopod farms sprung up in white mold a few days after their inception, which sent me scrambling to figure out whether this was an indication of …
Planning the vivarium
I have found about 3 good resources for bioactive hedgehog habitats, which I think is an indication of how rare these are (and why they need more documentation). Tyler Rugge and Cameron Clare both have YouTube videos on the setup of their bioactive hedgehog habitats as well as follow-up videos to discuss observations about the …
Preamble: my first hedgehog
In 2017, we had a friend that had bred her hedgehog and was looking for homes for the hoglets. The price seemed good, considering that it was an exotic animal, so I purchased one with very little information on the care of these little beasts. I had owned several pet rats, and in my youth …