New Diet for Sunny- tips on keeping his new prey healthy?

[Amber & Sunny]

Hey there! My boy Sunny is now a little over 8 inches long and is now going through his second full body shed this month (I think he's going to be a BIG boy lol, he has gained 2 1/2 inches in a month and a half). Anyhow, I fed him strictly Phoenix Worms (and a nice salad daily as well) since I have had him (almost 2 months) he was 2 months when I bought him. The worms were great! He ate them happily, I knew he was getting the exact right amount of calcium & they are soft bodied so no worrying for me on impaction, there was just one problem.... He starting going through a full container of them in less than a week!! (it's $10 a pop for 100 and no bulk options available, pay per cup) so I had to "upgrade" his feeder to something meatier and a little less harsh on the wallet (and postman, poor guy looks at me so bizarre now when I get "live animal" packages once a week). I decided to start keeping super worms- yes, I know he's a bit young for them! I cut the heads & tail tip off, then cut the worm in half making them about 3/4 inch pieces before serving. He LOVES them. He eats about 4-5 cut up supers a day along with 2-3 wax worms.

So to the question portion:

How do I care for and keep supers? Right now there are 400 of them in a large tupperware container with egg flats and organic grain cereal with pin holes throughout the top of the lid. They have been all fine and dandy until I decided to take some internet advice on yahoo answers and put a few pieces of potato in the container for them to eat yesterday, went to grab some out today and the whole tub stunk something awful and the cereal was very damp. I know moisture can kill these guys and they should be gutloaded but what should I gutload them with and what kind of substrate should they have? Also, how long do they keep for? At the rate Sunny is going we won't be through this container for another 3-4weeks.

By the way, for those concerned about my baby beardie eating supers, Sunny still poops regularly and he is just as alert and cuddly as before supers. Though your advice and cautionary words are appreciated so I can keep my buddy as healthy and happy as possible!

Thanks in advance!

 

[PatsyB]

I feed mine mainly supers, no problems. I don't cut mine though, Luci has no problem with them and Dexter is huge so she is fine. Typically Luci bites them in the middle and the head and or tail fall off and then he turns around and eats what fell off, he's a garbage disposal! I keep my supers in a 10 gallon fish tank with a metal top with lots of air flow. I keep them in an oat bran mixture that I bought from the place I ordered them from. Every now and then I will give them some greens or carrots or something like that. I make sure they are dried off before I put them in and take them out the next day if there are any left overs. Supers can keep for a very long time. The last time I ordered them I had them for MONTHS. This last batch I got at the beginning of November and it's now the end of December and I still have a good amount left.

 

[Amber & Sunny]

I feed mine mainly supers, no problems. I don't cut mine though, Luci has no problem with them and Dexter is huge so she is fine. Typically Luci bites them in the middle and the head and or tail fall off and then he turns around and eats what fell off, he's a garbage disposal! I keep my supers in a 10 gallon fish tank with a metal top with lots of air flow. I keep them in an oat bran mixture that I bought from the place I ordered them from. Every now and then I will give them some greens or carrots or something like that. I make sure they are dried off before I put them in and take them out the next day if there are any left overs. Supers can keep for a very long time. The last time I ordered them I had them for MONTHS. This last batch I got at the beginning of November and it's now the end of December and I still have a good amount left.

Thanks Patsy! I did a little more research and picked up a large tall plastic bin with a snap lid I can punture holes into. I also read somewhere that people use chicken feed as substrate because it's very dry and has a ton vitamins in it, so I grabbed a 5 lb bag of that as well. Now to clean out the dreaded stink container and move the worms.... ewwww.

 

[PatsyB]

Hope the cleaning went well. I gave my supers 2 chunks of butternut squash the other day and the next morning I couldn't find any of it! They are little scavengers.