Lesser mealworm beetles, signs of overcrowding?

Matttoadman

Matttoadman

Blatta
So my colony of Nauphoeta came with lesser mealworm beetles as a clean up crew. I must say they do clean up the molts and dead. However I have noticed they seem to do a great deal of eating. The dog food, fish flakes, oats, Guinea pig pellets are swarmed with them in seconds. How do you know you have too many? I like them but I prefer not to waste food on them.

 
Well, if they're eating all the food you'll probably want to try and get rid of some of them. Perhaps, since lobster roaches climb and lesser mealworms to the best of my knowledge do not, you could put the food in a smooth sided bowl? Or, alternately, you could make a trap that roaches can climb out of but the mealworms can't.

 
I place shallow dishes to catch excess lessers. You don't want too many of them in your colonies. If there isn't enough food they may go after molting roaches.

 
I figured I had a problem when I put in a handful of oats, a big pinch of flakes and 10 pieces of dog food. This morning all was left was 3 pieces of dog food. I don't think my couple hundred lobsters eat that much. So I put the food in a deep plastic lid to keep out the larvae. And put the oats in several of the egg carton slots. And removed larvae.

 
You'd be surprised how much a colony of roaches will eat, especially once you get them up in the hundreds...

 
Yeah some species are ravenous. My orange heads ate half a medium sized pumpkin in like 3 days at one point till I sold off half of them. My lateralis eat an 1/8 of a watermelon rind in 2 days. I get dumpster veggies although im a lil picky on thier behalf and still have to buy veggies for my colonys sometimes.

 
Well after moving the up higher there is a more normal amount of food left this morning. The lobsters do eat way more than my javanica and pantanals.

 
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