Mealworm farming

[hemet dennis]

Earthworms aren't the best if you are looking for a species of worm that makes castings for the garden since they don't consume much kitchen waster. Red wrigglers and night crawlers (except european) are much better options as they reproduce quickly and like to eat. I raised red wrigglers for years. I just put them in a dark box with bedding of shredded newspaper then added a pound of kitchen scraps a week and away they went. Red wrigglers are a little easier to keep since they can survive in a wider temperature range (50-110 I think). Some species of nightcrawlers have a smaller temp range (like african nightcrawlers which is 75-110). Nightcrawlers get nice long and fat though to sell as fishing bait or feed to animals. Red wrigglers don't get near as fat and usually grow only a couple inches.

Red wigglers are earthworms. But the best way to raise them is in beds in the ground and even better is under rabbit cages.

Some people raise them in horse poop even in the snow by the millions.

 

[Emily1220]

Let me rephrase, I thought I had grain mites but after looking at pictures, dont think thats it. I have small brown bugs in my meal worm colony and in my wheat bran supply. I read you have to destroy and completely start over to get rid of them. My question is what harm will they do the meal worms? Why must you get rid of them?

Thanks, John

If you have your worms in your house as many of us do........ do you really want mites in your house which will reproduce by the thousands and climb out of the bins and get into everything under the bins??? YUCK!!! Mites of any sort are hard to get rid of once they set up housekeeping!!!! Go back to page one on here and look at westknollamys site. She showed pictures of mites just dripping out of her bins onto everything. It was horrible!

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Let me rephrase, I thought I had grain mites but after looking at pictures, dont think thats it. I have small brown bugs in my meal worm colony and in my wheat bran supply. I read you have to destroy and completely start over to get rid of them. My question is what harm will they do the meal worms? Why must you get rid of them?

Thanks, John

Well that depends entirely on what that small brown bug is. We can't help much unless we can identify it. Is it a small beetle?

 

[Kassaundra]

Purchased a 3 drawer bin system - I want to get it all setup and then order some mealyworms. My chicks love them so much but they cost me $15/each every time I head out to TSC.

So I think I understand what I need to do for the top two bins - Bin#1 is for pupae and beetles their eggs will hatch in the substrate and drop through the screen into Bin #2 where they will grow into small worms. Then I see that Bin#3 is for large worms - but how do the worms get from Bin#2 into Bin#3? And is it really necessary to separate the large from the small?

My son has agreed to help me with this project as his way to earn summer money and to offset the fact that I prefer the mealyworms to be freeze dried rather then live.

In the three drawer method, as I understand it (to much work for me I use one simple bin) the top drawer is for the beetles there is a screen in the bottom of the drawer so the eggs fall to the second (middle) drawer, where they live and grow until they become pupa at which time you have two choices, the traditional choice of hand picking them out placing them in the bottom drawer until they become beetles and hand picking again and putting them in the top drawer, or you can exchange the whole middle drawer for the bottom then you are keeping your meal worms "generational" and you are only hand picking once when the beetles emerge back to the top drawer. Depending on how micro generational you want to get you can do multiple second and third drawers w/ enough drawers you could get it down to a two week period where all the mealies in a drawer are w/i 2 weeks maturation of each other.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Okay having seen the Enchanted Learning lifecycle page I understand the system better and why you might want to divide it out to watch the various stages of development.

So for the 3-bin system correct me if my version will be wrong please:

Bin#1 - contains the Darkling Beetle in substrate with food who will lay their eggs and then die in the bin eventually. The eggs will fall through the screen into Bin#2

Bin#2 - contains substrate and food and is where the eggs will hatch and grow into the larva (mealyworms) within 4-19 days? and this is the stage of growth with which most people feed their chickens. So if I want to save mealyworms for my chicks for winter I need to freeze them when they are in this stage of growth and if I want more mealyworms to grow I need to leave them to become pupa. I can either leave any pupa in Bin#2 or remove them to Bin#3 to grow into the beetle stage.

Bin#3 - contains substrate but not food and is where the pupa that will grow into Darkling Beetles that are then placed in Bin#1 for the cycle to repeat

Did I get that process correct?

And when we tire of watching the science of it all - the entire process could be done in the same bin without any issues right? So instead of having 3 bins with each containing different stages we could have 3 bins containing all stages of growth (assuming we plug up the screened bottom)?

Thanks!
Bobbie

 

[mychookschick]

Okay having seen the Enchanted Learning lifecycle page I understand the system better and why you might want to divide it out to watch the various stages of development.

So for the 3-bin system correct me if my version will be wrong please:

Bin#1 - contains the Darkling Beetle in substrate with food who will lay their eggs and then die in the bin eventually.  The eggs will fall through the screen into Bin#2

Bin#2 - contains substrate and food and is where the eggs will hatch and grow into the larva (mealyworms) within 4-19 days? and this is the stage of growth with which most people feed their chickens.  So if I want to save mealyworms for my chicks for winter I need to freeze them when they are in this stage of growth and if I want more mealyworms to grow I need to leave them to become pupa.  I can either leave any pupa in Bin#2 or remove them to Bin#3 to grow into the beetle stage.

Bin#3 - contains substrate but not food and is where the pupa that will grow into Darkling Beetles that are then placed in Bin#1 for the cycle to repeat

Did I get that process correct?

And when we tire of watching the science of it all - the entire process could be done in the same bin without any issues right?  So instead of having 3 bins with each containing different stages we could have 3 bins containing all stages of growth (assuming we plug up the screened bottom)? 

Thanks!
Bobbie

That sounds about right to me!

 

[bobbieschicks]

That sounds about right to me!

Okay thanks! Now I just need to figure out what we have for substrate and order some mealyworms from somewhere.

 

[Emily1220]

Okay thanks! Now I just need to figure out what we have for substrate and order some mealyworms from somewhere.

You got it totally correct!!! And it is so fun to watch the different stages but please dont worry or fuss to much about it. Separating them is for your own enjoyment. They will do absolutely perfectly fine all dumped into one big bin that you only toss a carrot into every few days!!!!! If you have a local petco store they carry the worms all the time. And online to order them check out westknollamy one page one here. She sells them too.

 

[taylorashleyd]

Red wigglers are earthworms. But the best way to raise them is in beds in the ground and even better is under rabbit cages.

Some people raise them in horse poop even in the snow by the millions.

Well I could have clarified better. Red Wrigglers are a type of earthworm, but they are a specific species of worm that is most commonly used in vermicomposting (when I think earthworm I think those huge ones you see after it rains, like 6-10" long and fat). The original poster seemed like she wanted worms for composting and snacks for the chickens. If so, red wrigglers are the best bet. If you want to raise them outside then manure or dirt is good option. If you are raising them inside paper is much less smelly. I wasn't going to truck in horse manure to my yard in the middle of my city for the worms. My neighbors would have killed me!

I raised them inside in a bin and the shredded newspaper and cardboard worked great. I wanted volumes of worms or I could have had them outside in dirt, but they wouldn't have reproduced very quickly in the winter here.

 

[jk216]

thanks for your reply, they are all mostly off white colour. I think it could be down to the temperature in the house as it has been quiet cold, i have read on this thread that mealworm no need a warm temperatures! Its still early spring although the last couple of days the temp has gone up and its been more like summer than spring. thanks again for your help