Hi, I was wondering if you can raise Dung Beetles I wrote a children's book on them, and I would love to bring them to the schools to show the children what they look like during my book talks.

I haven't been able to find much info on the care of dung beetles.

 

However, I have good results with keeping local creatures when I do my best to mimic their natural habitat and conditions.

 

If you could collect some beetles locally from horse dung (it doesn't seem to stink as bad as some other types of dung), you could try to culture them in a terrarium with some of the soil and dung that you find them in. It may be even better if you add a little of the grass or weeds from their location too. They would probably take some fruits, like apple, as well. 

 

 I doubt that they only feed on dung, even if some internet information says they do.

 

They might actually live without dung, but you will need it if you want them to breed.

 

Now that you gave me the idea, I am going to try to find some for myself.   ;)  LOL!

Well thank you, so much for your advise on them. I will try that and see if it works. I guess the only thing left to figure out is if they will eat something other than dung. Haha! Oh yea, I also need to find out if there are any breeders that raise and sell Dung Beetles since there arn't any in my area.

Hi Sara

 

here in The Netherlands we have Geotrupes stercorarius that can be kept with beetle jelly. Once in a while you can put some horse manure in there cage. Manure is needed for the ovipost.  

Sara wrote: Hi, I was wondering if you can raise Dung Beetles I wrote a children's book on them, and I would love to bring them to the schools to show the children what they look like during my book talks.

beetleguy wrote: -dead skin pieces of animals ←this also can include human body(based on forensic entomology stuffs)

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I found this on a organic farming link.

"They would start late in the fall (I am sure you could do it in the summer too) with a 5 gallon bucket of soil, topped by a cow patty. More than likely sheep, goat or horse poo would work as well---if their burying it in your pasture I am sure they will bury it in the bucket. However quantities and moisture may need to be adjusted? Anyway---add 5 or 6 pair of beetles (or as many as you can collect--search on line for how to collect, but usually pit traps with a bit of manure pat inside are used ( Nobody said it was going to be a clean job)."

I was aware of scientific studies of dung beetles using Onthophagus taurus

in short, the methods are...

"beetles are kept at a constant
temperature room at 26°C and 60% relative humidity (RH)
under a LD 16 : 8 h photocycle.
We obtained larvae by allowing five pairs of adult beetles,
selected at random from the colony, to breed in plastic
containers (25 cm tall, 20 cm diameter) filled with a moist
sand-soil mixture and provided with 0.5 L of cow manure
enriched with 4% wheat germ and 1% torula yeast. Breeding
containers were kept at 26°C and 60% RH under a LD 16 : 8 h
photocycle. A total of approximately 190 containers and 950
beetle pairs was used to produce over 5300 brood balls over the
course of this study. "

Thus, one pair gets 5 brood balls containing many larvae.  They then take individual larvae to seed individual dung balls (around 2 cm) which were pressed into indentations of a 12 well cell culture plate (basically the size of a small water bottle cap).  THey didn't say how long it would take to hatch.

rob