I have never been able to actually see the eggs, even with a microscope. But I always assumed they were laying eggs when they stick their back ends into the substrate. Though I do think they lay them all over the place as well. I was so pleased with how much faster they grew after using one of those reptile heaters that I went out and bought two more. I had some of my bins in a spare room for a while and that room tended to be around 63 degrees. They grew really, really slowly at that temperature. You want to be careful not to overheat them though. I tried a larger reptile heater once (an 8 watt instead of the 4 watt) and I fried a bunch of them.

Absolutely!! You'll see little drifts of skins! That's very good news! I do not mist---too worried about mold. I have drawn boundaries regarding what I will and will not do to raise mealworms. I'm pretty overloaded as it is! Mine do fine with just veggies and cornmeal. At least I think they do! In a box that big, I usually put 4 little pieces of celery (or whatever) to supply each "quadrant." If they're that tiny, I don't know how far they can go to get food! Hope that helps, Ann

I never give them anything that is bigger than medium. I ordered small ones once, but they didn't like them very much. I never realized birds could be so picky. They are as bad as my cat. For now I'm spacing out the mealies I have and will dip into my breeding box if need be for a few each day. I ordered some waxworms to try. Of course I realize that these birds were fine without me and my mealworms, and they'll be fine without me. Heck, if they could just eat a few mosquitos they'd be stuffed. They are really big this year! Thank you all of your responses. I found lots of info on later pages. I just didn't look as far as I should have. tara

Congratulations! This is our first year with birds in our new house, so we're new too. We order them online also from drsfostersmith.com When our geriatric kitty was alive, we ordered her supplies from them, and they were always friendly, affordable, quality, and prompt. This year we first ordered 2k mealworms, then another 2k, then since we had a decent routine of feeding & cleaning, this last batch was 5k. We keep them in the fridge, except during weekends when they come out for their 'dinner'. The grocery store clear-plastic Salad clamshells work very nicely for punching holes in the top & top-sides, and make a nice worm-home in the fridge. We just pull the worm-homes out of the fridge, pick 20 or 30 worms out of them, then take them out to the feeder. Hope this helps !