Mealworm farming

[azygous]

The feed store often orders things for me that they don't carry, and usually at still a good price. Don't know if they can get organic, but maybe.

My two feed stores are very customer un-helpful (Big R and TSC). I've requested they order me some wheat bran and they said no. No competition - only one feed store in each of the two towns I'm situated between. They have a captured customer base with all these farms and ranches and just two corporate feed stores serving this vast area in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.

Would grinding up some of the oats in a blender work for what you're tryng to do with the worms? Instead of buying the expensive wheat bran?

Since I live so far out from towns and stores, I raided my pantry for cereal. I found a small bag of oat bran. I used that for the younger tray of larvae. I discovered a box of Wheatena, and I used that for the tray of older, larger larvae. I kept a small handful of large worms out and installed them in some fresh "feed", the original bedding I've been using recently.

Next week, I'll drive over the pass and get some Red Mill wheat bran and add to the trays. I'm hopeful this is going to produce some pupae, if only in the small larvae tray.

But, absolutely, ground up rolled oats work splendidly as bedding.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[Isaac 0]

My Pupa has finally turned into the beetle

.When do i sift the eggs out of the beetle container i heard they will eat the eggs.Also i know some people use the automatic sifting technique but i didn't do that.Any suggestions


Thanks

 

[Jensownzoo]

I've never sifted my beetles out except when I'm moving them to fresh bedding--I do this every month so to group the hatching eggs into rough age groupings. Plenty of eggs hatch, so I suppose they like eating the oats and cabbage better than their own eggs?

 

[azygous]

As my larvae pupate, and then morph into beetles, I remove the adults to the beetle tray before they start laying eggs. I try to wrangle the beetles every other day or so at this stage, and I try to round them up before they turn dark brown. They generally don't start laying eggs until they harden.

This works well for me. I've never had a new hatch of eggs in a tray of large worms that are pupating.

I have the double-tray set up with the mesh bottom in the beetle tray so the eggs sift automatically into the second tray beneath. I let the eggs accumulate until I see movement. Then that tray is moved over to the larvae stack, and I replace it with a fresh tray under the beetle tray.

It's so easy to cut the bottom out of the plastic tray and glue some metal screening over it. Otherwise, I don't know how you'd go about sifting those tiny, tiny eggs out of the beetles.

 

[Isaac 0]

Thanks.I was planning on using a sifter tub to sift all the eggs out into another container by itself

 

[weidnercharm]

We have babies!!!

 

[SuperK]

Nice! Great photo too!

 

[Latestarter]

Now folks can see just how small these things are, and those have probably already molted twice! Grats!

 

[FuzzFaceFarm]

Nice! Great photo too!

Now folks can see just how small these things are, and those have probably already molted twice! Grats!

We have babies!!!

I'm a newbie at having a mealworm farm and I have 3 containers of mealworms at this small stage. I read that it takes about 10 weeks for baby mealworms to mature so how long would you say that the babies in the pic still have before they're almost mature so my chickens can have some? I keep my house at 75 F and they're substrate is wheat bran as well as a little bit of oats that I mix in. I also saved the "frass" that I sifted out of my containers on 10/13/16 and have it all in another bin in case I sifted any eggs and I do have worms hatching out of it so my question is how long should I save the "frass bin" before I can assume that no more mealworm eggs are in there that will hatch? I assumed about a month but I would love to have everyone's opinions on here.

Nice! Great photo too!

Now folks can see just how small these things are, and those have probably already molted twice! Grats!

That is a great pic, they're super hard to see at this small young stage. My camera won't even focus that close!

 

[Latestarter]

Just watch them grow. Temp is the biggest factor in how long it will take, given that they have food and a moisture source. Warmer = faster. Since you said you have multiple containers, I have to assume you're trying to separate the various stages. Too much tedious work for me. Get yourself a sifter, or a piece of window screen. Pour the frass slowly through it and the larger worms will get caught and can then be transferred. Since the eggs take anywhere from ~a week to a month to hatch (temp) and the worms take anywhere from 2-3 weeks to a month to grow large enough to NOT go through the screen (food/water/temp), do the math and plan accordingly. You can use the sifter as well to "collect" a pile for feeding out. I was never picky and fed out worms, pupae and beetles all at the same time. The chickens will eat all. They aren't all that picky. Good luck!