Dry oatmeal, or cornmeal. An organic source of moisture that is not likely to mold quickly. Carrots work best for this, but you can also use other fruits and vegetables such as sliced or chopped potatoes or apples. Three plastic containers with air-holes drilled in the tops. Several bits of cardboard in the form of egg cartons or used toilet paper rolls. Mealworms, also known as darkling beetle larva. You can start with anywhere from 500 to 1000.

Remove any rotted vegetable matter, dead insects, or clumps of mold from the oatmeal substrate. Add more vegetables and oatmeal as needed and move the bedding around to prevent mold. Keep an eye on the humidity levels in the habitat using a humidity meter. If the habitat gets too humid, the oatmeal will start to grow fungi, which makes the oatmeal less nutritious. Plus, fungi can attack the mealworms and kill them.

Maturity is marked by gradual darkening of color in all stages of the life cycle. Pupa start off extremely pale white and look more like little curled up beetles than segmented worms. You may notice that mealworms shed their skin (moult) several times before turning to pupa. This is normal.

Pupa do not move around very much and do not require any food. Moisture doesn’t hurt, but pupa will not eat away at the moisture sources you place inside the container with them. It is important to keep pupa separate from larva and adults because they cannot defend themselves and run the risk of being eaten before they have a chance to hatch. The pupal stage lasts anywhere from one to several weeks depending on the temperature. You will know they are getting close to hatching as they begin to darken in color.

Place the adult beetles into a separate container with the same setup as the mealworms. It never hurts to put a little extra oatmeal in there so they have more room to nest.

It is not necessary to remove the eggs, but they serve as a signal that you will have more larva (mealworms) soon. Adult females will lay about 500 eggs at a time. Eggs will hatch within 4-19 days depending on the temperature.

If you notice that you begin to produce more mealworms than you can feed to your pets, you can cook and eat some yourself, or humanely cull them by freezing some. Do not release them into the wild (mealworms are not native to North America). You may also feed some of the pupae to the adults, or place extra mealworms inside a bird feeder in your yard ;)