Species	Moisture %	Protein %	Fat %	Ash %
Dubia Roach	61 %	36 %	7 %	2 %
Trukistan Roach	64 %	37 %	5.5 %	2 %
Mealworm	59 %	10 %	13 %	1 %
Silkworm	76 %	64 %	10 %	7.5 %
Phoenixworm	65 %	17 %	9.5%	N/A
Superworm	59 %	20 %	16 %	1 %
Waxworm	61 %	16 %	11 %	1 %
Butterworms	58.5 %	16.2 %	5.2%	1 %
Crickets	70 %	18.5 %	6.25 %	1.3 %

General Information: Keep all handling of silkworms to a minimum to reduce the chances of die off’s. They have no smell, can’t jumb or run away, cannot bite, and are slow moving.

Housing: Small tub or rubbermaid container, with ventilation. The container should be almost air-tigt to prevent the food from drying out, but have small holes to allow air exchange.

Substrate: None.

Feeding & Watering: Mulberry leaf’s Feed daily.

Temperature: between 70-85F low humidity

Breeding: Silkworms will spin a cocoon about 28 days from the time they hatched if they are raised at approximately 85 degrees, fed, and maintained regularly. Place a piece of paper towel on the bottom of the container, so that when the moths emerge and are ready to lay eggs, the eggs can be removed with the paper towels.

Once the moths emerge, they will mate. (Females are significantly larger than male moths.) They mate for about a day, and after separation, the female will lay eggs. Sometimes another male will grab the female before she can lay her eggs. Each female will lay between 200 - 500 golden yellow eggs

When first laid, all eggs are lemon-yellow. After three days, they will turn white if they are infertile, or turn black if they are fertile. Fertile eggs usually hatch about two weeks after being laid in the middle of the summer, but they usually won’t hatch unless subjected to “winter” in your refrigerator for at least several weeks.

Wait until the eggs turn black before putting them in a Ziplock bag in the refrigerator. Once you take eggs out of the fridge, they will hatch in about 7-20 days. Direct sunlight in the morning for a few hours quickens the hatching process.

To incubate the eggs, place about 200 of them on a petri dish. Keep the eggs between 78 and 88 degrees F. An incubator works best at keeping the temperatures stable. The eggs can hatch at room temperature, but will take longer.

Place a damp paper towel next to the petri dish to keep the humidity levels high. Once the eggs have turned from a purplish color to a light bluish/gray, shows signs that they should hatch within a couple of days.

When the eggs begin to hatch, prepare silkworm chow, and place it in the refrigerator to it will be ready. Once they start to hatch, place small bits of chow in the petri dish, so the emerging worms will have something to munch on. Remember silkworms eat constantly, so always provide food. Try not to let the chow touch the unhatched eggs.

It is better to keep the young silkworms in the incubator to better assure their survival rates. After about 8 to 12 days, you can remove the worms from the petri dish, and place them into a small plastic container.

Remember to clean the container to prevent mold. Mold develops from high temperatures and high humidity. If the worms are covered too long, mold can develop and may kill the worms. If mold develops, grate about 1/2 inch of chow all over the worms with a cheese grater. Several hours later, as the worms crawl to the top of the new chow pile you can peal and lift them off the moldy chow and place them into a new container.

Silkworm (Bombyx Mori)
Serving Size 1 Worm Amount per serving Moisture 76% Ash 7.5% Protein 64% Fat 10% Not a significant source of Vitamin D3 or Calcium

General Information: Mealworms have a hard exoskeleton, Can lead to impaction in younger animals. Also are very fatty. For bearded dragons they should only be a treat.

Housing: Container, or Tub

Substrate: Un-cooked oatmeal, wheatbran, baby cereal.

Feeding: They will eat the substrate but also supply, apple, carrots, potatoes for moisture

Temperature: Room tempature is fine.

Breeding: Just leave them alone in the container, they will turn into a beetle and breed.

Mealworm (Tenebrio Molitor)
Serving Size 1 Worm Amount per serving Moisture 59% Ash 1% Protein 10% Fat 13% Not a significant source of Vitamin D3 or Calcium

Additional Information i gathered off Wiki:

Mealworms are the larval form of the mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor, a species of darkling beetle.

Life cycle

• Incubation: 10-11 days at 20°C; 4-6 days at 30°C
• Larval period: 90-114 days (10-14 larval molts).
• Pupal period: 30 days at 15°C; 9 days at 25°C; 6 days at 35°C.
• Adult Stage 1 - 2 Weeks

General Information: Great worms, Can be breed easily but takes a while, no smell. Very easy to take care of. Should only be feed to bearded dragons over 16″ long, smaller dragons it may cause an impaction. It is a myth that a superworm will eat through the dragons stomach. The total life span for a superworm is a little over a year from egg to beetle.

Housing: Large container, or Tub

Substrate: Un-cooked oatmeal, wheatbran, baby cereal.

Feeding: They will eat the substrate but also supply, apple, carrots, potatoes for moisture

Temperature: Room temperature is fine.

Breeding: Superworms need to be contained by them selfs for about 2 weeks, then they will morph into beetles. House all the beetles together with something for moisture. After a few more weeks you will notice tiny superworms.

Superworm (Zophobas Morio):
Serving Size 1Worm Amount per serving Moisture 59% Ash 1% Protein 20% Fat 16% Other 4% Not a significant source of Vitamin D3 or Calcium

General Information: Very common feeder for a wide range of pets. The range of size is from pinheads (less than 1/8th inch) to about 1-1/2 inches long. In large numbers they have a strong smell to them, also adults are very noisy. Provided a suitable environment, warmth, food and a water source they will thrive, and will provide a suitable staple for your pets.

You can use a 30 gallon plastic storage bin (the clear plastic ones may release a toxic fume when heated). Crickets are extremely sensitive to any fumes, gases or smoke. The bin needs to be well vented, cut a large window in the lid and use hot glue to place a metal screen blocking the hole so your have no escapees. You can use shiny packing tape around the top, crickets can not climb the tape. Crickets need a lot of surface space to roam around, if they are cramped they will stress and die.

Housing: Suitable containers include glass aquariums (the 10 gallon size works well), or large plastic containers. Do not overcrowd them, as overcrowding is the major cause of excessive death in crickets.

Substrate: None, makes it difficult to keep clean.

Feeding: They will eat almost anything. A mixture of, dog food, cat food and rabbit chow works fine. They require a high protein diet to stay healthy. Also supply fruits and veges for water, also water crystals. Remove old fruit/veges, MOLD will kill them.

Temperature: They prefer temps between 80-90 degrees F, but live longer in colder temps. 75-80 degrees.

Breeding:

Before you start you need to gather supplies:

-Rubbermaid tub

-Sandwich container

Substrate– I use Eco-Earth

Adult Crickets male/female

Heat Source– Clamp lamp, heat pad

Cricket food/water

Egg crates

Ok I’m going to break this down into sections, I have posted a similar guide before and got positive responses from those who used it.

Setting up: Once you have purchased the supplies you can start the breeding process. I would recommend not buying crickets at a local pet store. They buy from the same places you can find online and charge around 5 cent mark up per cricket so you pay around 8-9 cents each. You can get 1000 crickets for $16.99 at LLLReptiles, that is what I started with and used these as my feeders and breeders at the same time. You want to house them in a Rubbermaid tub or even an old tank you might have. I use a 40gal breeder tank and have a 75watt heat bulb providing heat. I keep the adult around 85 degrees, you will also know they are ready to lay eggs once they start chirping.

Breeding tubs: Take your sandwich containers and pack the Eco Earth tightly into the containers. You will notice that the dirt hold moisture very well. Don’t put the dirt all the way to the top of the rim as the crickets just kick the top layer around anyways. I leave about 1/2 or so from the soil to the rim of the container. Leave this in with the adult crickets for about 4-5 days. You will notice that the dirt has rice size eggs every where. Once the container seems full around the 4-5day mark you need to start the incubation process.

Incubation: Take the lid to the sandwich container and drill several holes into it and place it back on. This will allow moisture to escape, if you don’t it will grow mold in about 48hrs, trust me I’ve done it a few times now by accident. You want to make sure the dirt stays moist, honestly you will maybe spray the container once or twice before the eggs start to hatch. For incubation you can place them into another container or tank, understand that the baby crickets will escape the sandwich container because of the holes in the lid, so make sure you have the sandwich container in something they cant escape from. I use a old cricket keeper and stack 2-3 sandwich containers in there. The ones that escape cant climb out the keeper since its too slick for them to climb. They can how ever climb glass just as a caution. Once you place them in for incubation provide heat at about 80-90 degrees, I keep mine about 90 and they take maybe 4-5days and start hatching. Let them stay in the incubator for about 3-4 days once hatching begins, just provide lettuce or greens in the container, doesn’t take much to feed them. Once you see tons of babies running around its time to move them to a rearing container.

Rearing Container: Move the sandwich container to the rearing container and place egg flats, toilet paper rolls, food and water for them. Make sure you use toilet paper or some egg flat in the dirt and touching the bottom of the rearing tub so the babies have a way to climb out. When providing water some might say use a damp sponge, personally I make my own water gel. You can go to a local plant nursery and buy water crystals for about $8.00. Once mixed with water it makes several gallons of water gel, I’ve been making water gel off the same bottle for over 7months and I have at least 1/2 the bottle left. In about 5-6 weeks the babies will be about medium size, remember to still keep them warm, about 70-75 at the lowest and 80-85 on the higher side. Keeping them around 85 degrees will help them mature a little faster.

Once your rearing container is of age to breed again you can return them to the breeding/feeder container and repeat the process. I’ve noticed to keep the operation going at full speed you can run 1 or 2 more rearing tubs that will hold 2-3 batches of babies at a time. This way you will always have adults, medium size crickets and babies. But you can’t alter my process to fit your needs. If you have any questions please let me know.

How to make Cricket food and Water:

Food: Oatmeal, dry baby rice cereal, wheat germ, you can also add dry milk and so hi calcium cricket food.

Blend all of this into a powder, I currently use everything listed minus the dry milk, we were out. The crickets eat it up so fast.

Water Gel: Buy the water crystal, old milk container and some blue dye if you want to make it look like the store bought stuff.

I usually take about 3 tablespoons and put into the milk container, add about 1/4 of the container full of water and wait until it gels, them continue to add water until the gel fills the milk jug.

Warning: Cricket cages will smell up a room real fast especially since you are keeping the cages warm. I keep mine in my room right now and clean out the cage with the adults every night. I sweep out all the feces and dead crickets. I remove egg flats as needed. I also have cage cleaner that I use about once a week to wipe the cage out as well. This seems to keep the smell down and I don’t even notice it. If you can’t stand the chirping don’t keep them in your room, I didn’t like it at first but I actually like the sound, I sleep better with them chirping all night.

Thanks to Jr for his great tutorial on breeding crickets, His site is found -> here <-

Cricket (Acheta Domesticus)
Serving Size 1Cricket Amount per serving Moisture 74% Ash 1% Protein 18% Fat 6% Not a significant source of Vitamin D3 or Calcium

Thanks to Jr for his great tutorial on breeding crickets, His site is found -> here <-

General Information: Butterworms are the soft bodied larva of the Chilecomadia moorei moth native to the mountains of central Chile. They are known for their strong fruity smell that most reptiles love. These worms are commonly used for bait in fishing, as well as, food and treat for animals such as birds, small animals, fish, and reptiles. They have smooth, fat bodies, with a very soft exoskeleton, as at full maturity these worms will become Chilecomadia moorei moths. Butter worms have a very high calcium content, at the same time, the calories/ fat is extremely high, as well, which means that these high calcium insects should only be fed as treats.

Housing: When housing butter worms, you will want to keep them in the refrigerator, you will not have to feed the worms as their metabolism is slowed down they dont feed.

Substrate: Wheat bran, make sure it remains dry.

Feeding: Butter worms do not eat in this stage of life.

Temperature: Store your Butter Worms at temperatures of 42 to 45 degrees F. in the refrigerator.

Breeding: Butter worms are irradiated before they are shipped from Chile, which means that they can not breed once they come to the states. The sole purpose of irradiated them is to kill off any bacteria before they leave the country.

Butterworm (Chilecomadia Moorei)
Serving Size 1 Worm Amount per serving Moisture 58.5% Ash 1% Protein 16.2% Fat 5.2% Not a significant source of Vitamin D3 or Calcium

General Information: Wax worms are the soft bodied fat grubs of the Galleria mellonella moth. Waxworms are a popular feeder amongst reptiles, but they should only be feed as a treat. They can be great when trying to fatten up an underweight reptile, but to many can cause fatty liver disease.

Housing: Housing waxworms can be very simple. You can use a simple Cool-Whip container. Pour your homeade substrate, the waxworms, and a few crumpled wax paper balls.

Feeding: To make the substrate, you will mix bran and honey until it is well blended. Spread the mix on a cookie sheet to cool and harden. When the mix is cool, crumble it into the container. The mix may still be sticky, but that’s fine.

Temperature: Should be housed, between 55-65 degrees F (warmest section of your fridge) Also store them in low humidity.

Breeding:To breed your waxworms, keep them at room temperature, and eventually the waxworms will begin to spin cocoons. They will appear as bright orange ovals. Remove the cocoons into a separate container, that is also filled with wax paper balls and a small bottom layer of the substrate as bedding.

The waxworms will remain in the cocoons for about two weeks before moths will emerge.

Make sure to keep a lid on, because they do fly, and you probably don’t want moths flying about your home. The moths will mate and live for about a week or so.

They will lay their eggs in the crumpled waxpaper, so once they have died, wait a couple more weeks.

Then you will begin to notice tiny worms, which will grow very fast if kept at room temperature.

Once the worms are about half grown, you may want to put them in a container, with holes in the lid and bedding. Place the container in the refrigerator to stunt growth and reproduction rates.

Otherwise, if you leave them at room temperature, the worms will begin the cycle all over again.

Waxworm (Galleria Mellonella)
Serving Size 1 Worm Amount per serving Moisture 61% Ash 1% Protein 16% Fat 11% Not a significant source of Vitamin D3 or Calcium

Species: Blaptica dubia (Dubia or Guyana Orange Spotted Roach)

General Information

Where Found: Central & South America

Size: Adults up to 2”

Babies around 3/16”

Sexing: Males have wings, Females do not.

Life Span: After adulthood they can live up to 12 months.

Smell: Little to no odor.

Climbers: Can not climb smooth surfaces.

Burrow: This species does not burrow.

Fly: They have wings but are unable to fly, but my sputter a few inches.

Speed: Slow, very easy to hold in your hands.

Active Period: Nocturnal

Reproduction: They are a live bearing species. They reproduce the slowest of all non-climbers.

Housing

Enclosure: A large dark tub (60q+) works well with a screened in top for ventilation.

Substrate: I suggest not using any type of substrate to minimize maintenance. This will make cleaning much easier and greatly decrease any smell.

Hiding: I use vertical egg flats to allow the feces to fall to the bottom of the enclosure.

Heat: The hotter they are the faster they breed, anywhere between 75F to 98F works well.

Humidity: I like to keep humidity about 60% to help with molting.

Food & Water

Food: A high protein diet is recommended for all roaches.

Water: I use water crystals, I have found they work the best.

Species: Blaberus fuscas (False Death Head or Dwarf Cave Roach)

General Information

Where Found: South America

Size: Adults up to 2 3/4”

Babies around 3/16”

Sexing: Females are much larger than the male, the males are typically slender. The males wings are longer than the body, the female’s wings are shorter.

Life Span: After adulthood they can live up to 18 months.

Smell: Mild to strong defense odor.

Climbers: Can not climb smooth surfaces.

Burrow: This species does burrow, but substrate is optional.

Fly: They have wings but are unable to fly, but my sputter a few inches.

Speed: Mildly fast, not easy to hold in your hand on to.

Active Period: Nocturnal

Reproduction: They are an egg laying species.

Housing

Enclosure: A large dark tub (60q+) works well with a screened in top for ventilation.

Substrate: I suggest not using any type of substrate to minimize maintenance. This will make cleaning much easier and greatly decrease any smell.

Hiding: I use vertical egg flats to allow the feces to fall to the bottom of the enclosure.

Heat: The hotter they are the faster they breed, anywhere between 75F to 98F works well.

Humidity: I like to keep humidity about 60% to help with molting.

Food & Water

Food: A high protein diet is recommended for all roaches.

Water: I use water crystals, I have found they work the best.

Species: Blaberus discoidales (Discoid)

General Information

Where Found: Mexico

Size: Adults up to 2”

Babies around 3/16”

Sexing: Females are much larger than the male, the males are typically slender. The males wings are longer than the body, the female’s wings are shorter.

Life Span: After adulthood they can live up to 18 months.

Smell: Mild defense odor.

Climbers: Can not climb smooth surfaces.

Burrow: This species does not burrow.

Fly: They have wings but are unable to fly, but my sputter a few inches.

Speed: Mildly fast, not easy to hold in your hand on to.

Active Period: Nocturnal

Reproduction: They are a live bearing species. They reproduce faster than Blaptica dubia but slower than Nauphoeta Cinerea (Lobster Roach)

Housing

Enclosure: A large dark tub (60q+) works well with a screened in top for ventilation.

Substrate: I suggest not using any type of substrate to minimize maintenance. This will make cleaning much easier and greatly decrease any smell.

Hiding: I use vertical egg flats to allow the feces to fall to the bottom of the enclosure.

Heat: The hotter they are the faster they breed, anywhere between 75F to 98F works well.

Humidity: I like to keep humidity about 60% to help with molting.

Food & Water

Food: A high protein diet is recommended for all roaches.

Water: I use water crystals, I have found they work the best.