All beetles, no mealworms. WHY?

[HEChicken]

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Interesting information. I have all of mine in one sweater sized sterilite container and haven't noticed any signs of them eating each other (i.e. the worms didn't eat the pupae and nor did the beetles). I started with worms, had pupae within a couple of weeks, beetles a couple of weeks after that and now have lots and lots of baby worms that are growing rapidly. I still have some beetles but don't have any pupae or original worms at this point. The beetles are still pretty active but I can't see any sign they're eating the baby worms, and since I have so many babies, the beetles can't be eating ALL the eggs.

Side note - when the beetles die, I pull them out and feed them to the chooks. They think they're a great treat and this way they don't go to waste.

 

[jennh]

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One other hint---wear a mask when you sift, it really gets dusty!!

Jen

 

[sillybirds]

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Placing a folded piece of paper, like a brown paper grocery bag, works well to collect large worms, as they seem to like to crawl in between the layers of paper. Regarding feeding of the carrots or potatoes, if you have a lot of worms in your container, you can usually just put the carrots right on the bran, as I've found the worms will devour the carrots even overnight. After a day or two, sift through the bran with your fingers, to make sure that the worms are promptly eating the food, so uneaten food doesn't sit for long and cause mold. You'll get a feel for their needs.

 

[sillybirds]

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Wheat bran seems to work best as the substrate (bedding/principle food source). It's not expensive, is readily available, and the worms seem to like it. I tried rolled oats once with poor results. Most people use carrots or potatoes as a moisture source.

 

[chickbird]

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you can get wheat bran, 25lbs. for about $8.00 at tractor supply. just put mealworm raising in the search here and you can view the instructions. can also do this on u-tube and view videos on this.

 

[cluckcluck42]

I used whole wheat flour and some oats and mixed in chicken feed for good measure (read that somewhere). I put some lettuce, carrots and sliced potatoes for moisture. I will grab some bran next time we go to the feed store which should be soon but so far they are all doing fine. Is it weird I don't find them gross at all? They are kinda cool to watch, they are so active!

Thanks for the help

I don't have anything on top of them, should i put part of a burlap sac or something on top?? Thats the part I'm confused about, do you put something on top of or in the middle of the substrate?

 

[cluckcluck42]

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Oh I have actually, I've read a few How To's online but each one was really varied in what they said to do/use and it got a bit confusing to me. I did a search on the forum for mealworms and this thread was the only relevent one to come up, does the search not go back very far? hmmm.

 

[jennh]

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Wheat bran seems to work best as the substrate (bedding/principle food source). It's not expensive, is readily available, and the worms seem to like it. I tried rolled oats once with poor results. Most people use carrots or potatoes as a moisture source.

Chicken mash works really well as bedding/food, as I posted. Most people with chickens would have access to this

A plus to using apples cut side up is that the exposed part doesn't come in contact with the "bedding/food", because the peel prevents this. That's why I don't like carrots or potatoes. They rot too quickly. When the apple is all eaten, just pick up the skin and throw it on the compost pile.

Jen

 

[dntd]

Mealworms make a good snack my colony has tons of itty bitty worms right now they have a mix of bran and oatmeal as bedding:
meal worms are healthy!
Moisture 62.44 %
Protein 20.27 %
Fat 12.72 %
Calories 133
Ash 1.57
Fiber 1.73 %

 

[HEChicken]

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LOL - what do they taste like?