Care and feeding of Phaneus vindex/difformis

scottbot84

scottbot84

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While I'm far from an expert in this species, I don't see a lot on care (other than in Orin's Ultimate Guide/ Handbook) so I figured I would collect some things here.

I'm using both females I bred myself and some fresh WC adults (from BIC) this year, and hope to use all CB stock next year.

No plans to breed at scale, just attempting to establish a stable colony.

What worked for me last year:

1. Basic instructions as outlined in the Ultimate Guide (tote with 8" soil, add dung, remove balls every few weeks)

  •   This setup is very heavy, so set it up where you intend to keep it (I used my attached garage)
  •   I tried dog, tortoise, and human (from infant diapers). Tortoise was strongly preferred, while dog was accepted occasionally, Human (thankfully) did not appear to be consumed at all
  •   Sorting through soil can take a fair amount of time, since you need to be careful not to disturb balls.  Balls are almost always at the very bottom of the container, so you don't need to worry much about the top layer of soil once you have found the adults.
2. I stored harvested balls half buried in moist coco coir substrate at room temperature in sandwich containers with a few pinholes. Balls created in June emerged in September. 

  •   Balls created later all failed for unknown reasons, possibly due to storage conditions. Planning to try to fully submerge balls in semi moist soil this time.
3. Adults were stored at 55F and fed beetle jelly and occasional dung. Adults seemed to be surprisingly active, and continue to appear healthy at around 6 months old.

Things to try/figure out:

  1.  Housing - how to use less dirt, best containers, etc.
  2.  Supplementary food -  spoiled meat, etc.
  3.  Male/female ratio, when/if to remove males, ratio, etc.
Helpful Info

I'll clean this up and update as I go, but it's a start. Fell free to add your comments, experiences, and questions.

 
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Great work, Scott!
I've always been interested in rearing one, but I don't think I could possibly provide enough amount of animal feces every days basis.

Thank you for sharing your works!

Couple things I would like to ask: how much amount of tort feces did you provide? My torts are only an year old, they don't really poop a lot. Also, how large was each brood ball?

 
I have a female Burmese Star Tortoise.
She is about 13 years old and weighs about 13 lbs. I also have two smaller males but they don't really poop much yet. Outside of the winter months, my female grazes on grass and eats veggies daily. She poops a lot.

I've had some luck with dog waste this year, it just needs to be fresh (diet might be a factor too).

To answer your question, I was probably offering what I would guess is a fistful (maybe 2/3 of a cup) of dung 1-3 times a week.

That's enough for about 5-6 beetles.  I'll try to note it a bit more closely this year.

Brood balls were about the size of a golf ball, with a little bump on top with the egg underneath.

 
Order from BIC arrived - group is now 2:5 (with my 3 CB females). I've separated them into 2 groups of 1:3 and 1:2, with all the CB females together. My CB females seem slightly larger so it will be interesting to see which group is more productive per beetle.

Last year I used a 120 qt bin the was extremely heavy w/ 8+ inches of soil, this year I am trying 2 66 qt bins since the groups are smaller. The weight is much more manageable and I am using sturdier clear bins this time. 

Bins are stored in an attached garage w/ artificial lighting, at least until night time temps increase. 

Instead of yard soil (which came with worms and June beetle larvae) I am using Miracle Grow Raised bed soil w/ added sand. 1 bag for each bin (1.5 cubic feet) + maybe 5% sand seems to provide adequate depth and consistency. I had luck w/ raised bed soil in raising beetles for egg laying and pupation, so am trying it again this year. While pricey, it has good moisture retention and compacts readily.

 
Thanks for the details! Would love to try out, but (I also have Burmese) have no access to that much of tort feces, other than my own.🤣🤣

 
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My mom would kill me if I fed poop to my dung beetles, and I honestly wouldn't want to do that myself. Instead, I make a "poop" of a mix of cat food, cat treats, chopped timothy hay, turtle food, and a vegatable. Put it all in a cup of boiling water and let it set for several hours till fully soggy and ready to mush. I'm not sure of using flour, so I use roach kibble as a flour instead. Mix it until the mix becomes thick and firm. I wasn't even sure if they'd like it, but they did. The hay does a good job, giving it that cattle-poop smell.

 
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That's super interesting, I would be surprised if they were able to make viable brood balls with that.

I had good luck over winter with plain beetle jelly like BIC recommends, although I did use a small amount of droppings.

 
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