Feeding WORMS to Chickens?

[Chicken girl 15]

Figured I would accompany JetCat's answer with a picture. This is a normal-sized mealie next to a normal-sized super. The super is the big one.

ok that is yucky!!! My flock eats anything slow enough to get cough though. I try really hard to ignore what they eat.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

 I too am on the coast (Up North) the rain has not been seriously hampering my chickens free ranging duties...

 I haven't tried Super worms but, as I dig around with chickens at my side, I tend to find lots of centipedes and very large spiders.

The chickens seem to have an instinctual ability to sense the bugs that can bite them, even the chickens from other areas south. They will attack the bugs head and kill it before they will eat it.
 I have also seen them eat wasps with great care not to get stung... Amazing animals they are!

amazing indeed. My girls seem to know that bee's are essential to life. They eat everything but my garden bee's.

 

[animalspooker]

OK, gonna start raising mealworms, but have a lot of questions. First, why do you want your mealworms to pupate if you're feeding them to the chickens as mealworms instead of as beetles? Are you doing it to replenish your adult beetle/breeder stock? And how many adults do you keep at a time for egg production?

And can I raise them in the winter or will I have to bring them inside to do that?

 

[JetCat]

OK, gonna start raising mealworms, but have a lot of questions. First, why do you want your mealworms to pupate if you're feeding them to the chickens as mealworms instead of as beetles? Are you doing it to replenish your adult beetle/breeder stock? And how many adults do you keep at a time for egg production?

And can I raise them in the winter or will I have to bring them inside to do that?

yes you need more beetles to keep breeding as they die and need to be replaced. i keep about 1000 beetles in a large bin and rotate them to a new bin every 3-4 weeks (i wait till i see baby worms then move the beetles myself) you will need to keep them ideally at 80° for optimal breeding, in the winter if they get too cold the beetles will die and the worms will hibernate, if they freeze they all die.

 

[TheBantyCoop]

OK, gonna start raising mealworms, but have a lot of questions. First, why do you want your mealworms to pupate if you're feeding them to the chickens as mealworms instead of as beetles? Are you doing it to replenish your adult beetle/breeder stock? And how many adults do you keep at a time for egg production?

And can I raise them in the winter or will I have to bring them inside to do that?

You can put the worms that you don't want to pupate in the fridge, this will prevent them from pupating and growing by forcing them to hibernate. If you want them to grow just take them out and give them some food, then you can put them back in the fridge. The worms are premature beetles, (larvae) so in order to breed more worms you will need to have beetles.

http://www.wikihow.com/Raise-Mealworms

Wiki How is not terribly reliable, but its short and to the point.

 

[enola]

Chickens will eat them after they pupate and will eat the beetles, too.

 

[TheBantyCoop]

Chickens will eat them after they pupate and will eat the beetles, too.

What stage do they have the most nutritional value in?

 

[JetCat]

What stage do they have the most nutritional value in?

the larva stage (worm), i wouldn't feed pupa or beetles unless you don't plan to raise them.

 

[enola]

Despite my best intentions, sometimes I didn't harvest frequently enough. I only fed pupaes and beetles when I had a few thousand extras that I didn't need for breeding.

 

[TheBantyCoop]

the larva stage (worm), i wouldn't feed pupa or beetles unless you don't plan to raise them.

Ok, thanks!