Wireworms (click beetle Larvae) as food

alamao

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I have noticed there are a lot of click beetles around my house lately and I did some reading and there larvae (wireworm) is very similar to the meal worm. I was wondering how wireworms would be for food as I can very easily get a colony going. Can anyone tel me how they'd go as food and whats there nutritional value in comparison to mealies
thanks and please reply thanks.
 
Re: nutrition (click beetle Larvae) as food

try the food of mealworm.
grain、vegetables、Fermentation sawdust、fish food
the nutrition value of mealworm depends what you feed them.
i guess wireworms are the same.
 
They look a lot like mealworms, but their diet seems different. If you wanted to give a go at raising them, I'd try catching a bunch of beetles and putting them in a shoebox of soil and feeding potatoes and greens. They're known to feed on plant roots and decaying veggies, so I'd guess that potatoes may do the trick. Try it over a few weeks and see. If they lay for you, you would see the results by two months if they have the same life cycle as mealworms.

That, or just order a batch of 1000 mealworms and let some pupate and morph into beetles. It may be easier than doing some guesswork. Nutrition really does depend on what you feed the larvae, and that may be hard if you don't know what foods they'll take. Fresh fruits and veggies is a good diet for mealies, so if they'd take things like that you'd have some very nutritious feeders. Plus if you could collect your breeders locally, that would save you some money on feeders.

Now that I'm looking more at species... There are so many species of click beetles and wire worms that you're going to have to identify your local species and look up your diet. I found another forum thread on them.

click beetle colony tips?

I'm guessing this is your species:
Click Beetle (Elateridae family )

So that's why I suggested a dirt substrate.

"Food
Adults eat pollen and nectar. Larvae eat roots."

I'm not sure how you'll achieve the adult diet, but sounds like the larvae should easily take root vegetables. Seems like you'll need to do some research. As long as you're not feeding them garbage, they should be adequate feeders. I hope you can figure out how to raise them and keep the adults alive. Seems like mealworms would be easier as a captive feeder, but this might make a fun project.
 
AW: Wireworms (click beetle Larvae) as food

Hi,

my fire salamanders don't like to eat wire worms, because those larvae seem to have a rather hard shell. My slamanders catch those larvae, but usually they spit them out again.
So I don't feed them any more.
But maybe down under in Australia you have different species of click beetles whose larvae don't have such a hard shell as they have here in Europe.

Peter
 
Ok well I have 3 Mealworm colonies I am thinking of a click beetle colony because I am a very bored individual and just want to try something different. Here in Oz the click beetle is rather small and black and I believe the wireworm here is basically a white or long light orange mealworm. I think that I would only feed them to my axies after they have first shedded just like with mealies. The main problem is I think Click Beetles are amazing escape artists they can fly and they can jump as the darkiling beetle can't do eithe rof these.

http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/B7/B71...ntation.Large/Cardinal-click-beetle-larva.jpg
 
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