Feeder Insect Clean Up Crew

I’m not sure this will get attention but for those of you that raise your own feeder insects do you use a clean up crew? I’m using buffalo beetles aka lesser mealworms in my dubia bins. I have my breeding colony, baby colony and my feeder colony. When I originally recieved the beetles there were about 25 beetles and about 20 larvae give or take. I evenly divided them into the 3 bins. They’ve since exploded in numbers and are doing an awesome job cleaning. But now they’ve expoloed to the point I’m going to clean and thin the numbers in all the bins. I already removed most of them from the baby bin last week. I have them with some wheat bran as bedding and some egge crate and toss them a veggie here and there for hydration. Does anyone else have advice or experience with these cleaners or the more aggressive Dermestidae. I read you can keep them on dry food over meat if preferred. Looking for a better substrate and feed. I’ve seen them on Aspen, but they were being fed meat. I might just try a few things and see what’s better.

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@t_h_wyman and @thebeardedherper will likely be your guys here. :+1:

I know both of them are just as involved in the small critters as they are in reptiles.

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I haven’t set up any colonies of these specifically but I do have them in most of my cages and my dubia bin. I don’t have any in my hisser tubs as those are setup on soil with dwarf white isos and springtails. That tend to clean up any extra food that gets left behind. I do know from previous experience that the lesser meal worms will eat just about anything including animal waste though ita not something id want to throw in a colony lol. They will eat birdseed though and while you may not want to throw meat in the bin for the stink factor you could still throw in any shed skins from your animals, left over chicken bones get cleaned pretty quickly, and dehydrated fish and shrimp that you can purchase as feeders or people food are also easy protein (growth) boosters with very little to no odor.

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I had dermestids and buffalos in my dubia colony (before I got rid of it) but I only kept them in there and did not separate them out. The only feeder insects I have now require different conditions that the typical roaches so I do not have any clean-up crew for them.

I concur with @thebeardedherper on his suggestions though

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Cool,. I’m going to try a few things out,. Bird seed would be cheap enough to sustain them in-between colonies. I’m going to get some Dermestidae too here down the line. I’d like to do some skull cleaning with both,. I know the buffalo arnt the best choice for this. Wanna see the difference.