What Do Mealworms Eat

Lizards for the ladies

Touching them would be out of the question, let alone keeping them as pets. They’re just squishy pests and nothing more, right?

But then again, if you’ve seen a leopard gecko, a relatively popular distant cousin of the house gecko, you may be inclined to think otherwise. This friendly-looking critter comes in mesmerising colours of pop yellow and orange, with some even sporting leopard-like spots. Its thick, bumpy tail may look creepy at first, but it does make the creature look like a prehistoric wonder – fragile and fascinating at the same time.

It comes as no surprise to gecko breeder Firdaus Karim, 33, that women and children should fawn over leopard geckos.

“They’re really tame. And because they come in thousands of colours and patterns, they’re never boring,” he says. A world apart from the house gecko, for sure.

“I find them extremely cute,” says Firdaus’ wife, IT analyst Sherry Lee, as a daffodil-hued leopard gecko clings onto the collar of her shirt. “And they can be quite fun.”

Still, lizards are lizards, and they can never be as cuddly as a pet dog or cat. So do they feel as icky as they look?

“The first time I touched one, it really wasn’t that bad. It’s just scaly, not slimy,” says Lee, 31. “My girlfriends always ask: ‘Sherry, how can you touch those things?’ But until you have touched and felt one, you will never know what it’s really like.”

The texture of the leopard gecko resembles a bumpier, colder version of a faux snakeskin purse. They’re wriggly little things, all right, but if you compare them to a slithering snake, what you have is the lesser of two evils. “Snakes move very fast, and you have to know how to control them. Lizards are a bit more subdued,” says Lee, singing the lizard’s praise.

While it may be true a lizard is preferable to a snake (what’s not?), not everyone is charmed by the reptile with the legs. College student Yoong Yuin Hun says her mother still thinks of her pet lizards (she lives with a menagerie of leopard geckos, bearded dragons and blue-tongued skinks) as “snakes with legs”.

“Even though she tolerates my interest, she wouldn’t touch any of my pets. She thinks they look evil,” says the 26-year-old.

Firdaus says lizards are something that “you’ll either love or hate”, adding, “People fear what they do not understand.”

While Yoong’s mother wouldn’t go near her lizards, twelve-year-old Fiona Yee’s mother, Kim Pang, doesn’t even flinch when she is asked to hold on to Apricot, her daughter’s squirmy and plump leopard gecko.

What do you feed your mealworms? in The Bluebird Chatter Forum ...

I found this thread about calcium but am wondering what recipes people here are using to feed their mealworms. I have been using oats (to keep mixture from clumping) mixed with whole wheat flour, regular flour and corn meal.  I think I used wheat germ once but it started to stink real bad after awhile.

http://bluebirdnutcafe.yuku.com/topic/3544/Need-some-help-advice-on-mealworm-feeding I have found that it's best to put as little food/substrate in with them when they are in the fridge as possible, because it does some how get moisture in it and starts to clump at the bottom and some of the mealworms don't make it.   They don't need food in the fridge anyway because they are dormant.  I take a cup out at a time and leave them in a little container with cornmeal in it for them to eat. (cornmeal because when I use a strainer the cornmeal sifts out easier). I've never seen wheat germ mentioned as an option anywhere. I've used wheat bran and it worked fine but doesn't sift well. Neil, I just purchased 10,000 worms (just before my last babies were due to hatch and then died). This is what I do and have done for the past four years, and as indicated on my shipping instructions with the worms from Grubco.
     I believe the main question is how long you keep the worms - this amount of worms for me will last 2 or 3 months or more, so I package them so I can take them out of the fridge to eat every week or two. When they arrive I immediately package them in several shallow separate plastic containers WITH LOTS OF SMALL AIR HOLES DRILLED IN, and put in bedding/feed mixture of mostly wheat bran, with a very small amount of regular oatmeal mixed in. I believe instructions are to not exceed 1 1/2 or 2 inches of depth in boxes. Then I also put in several thin slices of carrots for their moisture and let them eat for about 12 or 24 hours (need to remove any unused carrots or apples). This last batch was an extra day in the mail and they were really hungry and thirsty when they arrived and ate almost all the carrots up! I have no trouble at all with clumping, believe this is because I have plenty of air holes in top of boxes. The odor that sometimes comes is from their waste, so I change out the bedding/feed every month or so, putting in fresh wheat bran and oatmeal.

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