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Different types of insects you can get from suppliers or pet stores or out of your own back yard for your terrarium critter
and ways to keep, raise and/or breed them.
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In Site Care Sheets
Other Alternative Feeders
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Earth worms
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60-65 temp. (heat in winter with a light bulb) Mulched soil such as peats with leaves, pulp (shredded newspaper and/or sawdust
would do), some sphagnum moss but not allot. Very moist but not wet. Preferably a container that remains dark, you can even
use an ice chest. The soil needs air so the lid needs holes or slightly ajar or you may even use an aquarium air pump and
occasionally stir the soil. Angle the chest and use it's 'faucet' as a drain for excess water. The colony will establish within
a month. Every 3 to 4 days sprinkle a light layer of corn meal on the top of the soil. Stir any left overs from the last feeding
into the soil. As a feeder, left over worms from feeding a frog or lizard smells pretty bad so pick out just enough at just
the right size and take them out if they are still there within 4hrs.
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Isopod: woodlous
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They eat composting leaves and bark, favoring an occasional potato or its vegetation and peals, carrots and maple bark. You
can give them a tropical vivarium set up in a 10gal tank, moist but not too wet, low humidity. Plenty of leaves and bark.
Otherwise, a plastic container with a closing lid, small breathing holes on the side. They can't climb but if you keep this
out of the way, you don't want holes big enough for spiders to crawl in. Fill the bottom with moist peat moss following with
a substrate of leaves and bark. Keep it damp and warm by at least room temperature, no greater than 85 degrees.
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Mealworms
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Simple container. Fill the bottom with a substrate of bran or whole wheat flour or corn meal. Add anything like potato's,
apples, carrots ect. for moisture.
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Mosquito Larvae
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Breed in stagnant water, easy to find in any rain water barrel or pots, buckets ect. Catch them with an aquarium fish net
and drop them directly into the tank in a bowl of water or into the water of a false-bottom/semi-aquatic tank. If your pet
doesn't eat the larvae right away, they'll eat the mosquitoes.
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Springtails
Collembola
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These are very tiny anthropods who eat on decaying plants, leaves, fungi, molds, algae and active dry yeast. I've gathered
springtails more or less by accident gathering leaf litter for my vivariums. They can also be found in compost and moist,
decaying wood. You can gather springtails for stock by buying them or gathering moist leaf litter from a garden or compost.
The care sheet link I have below for them uses plaster of Paris for the substrate but you can still use wood decay, a humus
like coir, peat moss, orchid bark or plant charcoal (not the BBQ kind, active carbon would benefit them as well). Their container
needs to be moist (not drenched) and warm, 70-80 degrees.
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