Freeze dried mealworms: How much is too much?

[kizanne]

it's really easy and economical to raise your own live ones. I too worried about the china thing.

 

[penney1]

I never thought about checking where meal worms came from, so I checked and Happy Hen Treats is manufactured in Boerne, TX. They cost about $1 an ounce. Much cheaper than live and more convenient. My chickens LOVE them.

 

[Bella Blue]

I just started raising meal worms and nightcrawlers for my girls.the most time I spent was setting up their boxes they take no time at all! i throw in some corn meal for the nightcrawlers to eat and any fruit or veggie kitchen scraps i want to quickly compost.the corn meal is a slightly neater cleaner way to go.the meal worms I just toss in small carrots for them and they live in n bran bedding w some raw oatmeal mixed in.

all are growing fast and take hardly any work at all. I bought mine from "www.unclejimswormfarm.com" . The worms arrived in special bags a sinch bag for the nightcrawlers a zippered one for the meal worms.I had not expected them to arrive so early they sat in my mail box six or so hours in freezing temps. I got them in their habitats r away when we found them. I was sure most were dead. I had also been a bit disapointed on their size. Once they warmed up some I did not lose one worm of either kind! All are doing well they really know how to pack them for any weather...and....they dehydrate some in shipping after all had food and water they got much bigger in just a couple hrs!

I highly recommend uncle jims he also has a youtube video on setting up nightcrawlers its way less complicated then the forums online say it is.ya don't need to check soil ph..ya just house them in damp peat moss ..very easy. I am not affiliated w uncle jims but like to spread the word when I am really impressed with a buisness...my 8 chicken girls are reaaaaly impressed with his worms.. lol.I can't wait.to have adult worms breeding all summer.most of my meal, worms are already molting a sign they are growing fast. Its also saving me a lot of money.I have bought a lot of freeze dried meal worms and my girls love em but at 21.00for a largs laundry soap sized jug w a handle..they don't last very long.

 

[WHmarans]

I am looking into this question of how much is too much for chickens. I've heard of anything from fatty liver disease to kidney stress from too much protein. Also the publication "Nutrient Requirements of Poultry" actually finds there is toxicity of Methionine (the major amino acid in mealworms) if fed at high levels.

At this point I am thinking the question of how much is too much should depend on what your chickens are eating for their main diet. Because Methionine is an amino acid required as part of the diet because the body can't manufacture it.

Here is what I've come up with looking into this and I don't know how much I can trust the information I've found so far or how I might be misinterpreting it at this point:

For layers they will need about 0.22 lbs of balanced feed per day. The diet is supposed to be something like 0.30% Methionine by weight.. and dried meal worms are something like 50% Methionine by weight? I think so.. It seems like somewhere around (0.006 lbs) 0.1 ounce of Methionine per day per adult layer is what they need.. and I think that is equal to about (0.132 lb) 0.2 ounces of dried meal worms?

That is if they are not getting almost any in their regular diet.

I wonder how many meal worms it takes to make 0.2 ounces and what that same number would weigh live?

Anyone know? I really do not know if I'm on the right track or not with this and just wonder if it will sound ridiculous when I find out how many meal worms that would be per chicken.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I am looking into this question of how much is too much for chickens. I've heard of anything from fatty liver disease to kidney stress from too much protein. Also the publication "Nutrient Requirements of Poultry" actually finds there is toxicity of Methionine (the major amino acid in mealworms) if fed at high levels.

At this point I am thinking the question of how much is too much should depend on what your chickens are eating for their main diet. Because Methionine is an amino acid required as part of the diet because the body can't manufacture it.

Here is what I've come up with looking into this and I don't know how much I can trust the information I've found so far or how I might be misinterpreting it at this point:

For layers they will need about 0.22 lbs of balanced feed per day. The diet is supposed to be something like 0.30% Methionine by weight.. and dried meal worms are something like 50% Methionine by weight? I think so.. It seems like somewhere around (0.006 lbs) 0.1 ounce of Methionine per day per adult layer is what they need.. and I think that is equal to about (0.132 lb) 0.2 ounces of dried meal worms?

That is if they are not getting almost any in their regular diet.

I wonder how many meal worms it takes to make 0.2 ounces and what that same number would weigh live?

Anyone know? I really do not know if I'm on the right track or not with this and just wonder if it will sound ridiculous when I find out how many meal worms that would be per chicken.

Good question, but I don't know if the actual amounts that are safe to feed are known. I think your methionine content percentages in mealworms is in error. Most studies I've seen suggest methionine content to be somewhere between 1% and 2% of the total protein content (not total body weight) depending on the methods used and whether they were dried or live weight (see table 8 in this paper). That would dramatically change your calculations. Here is a paper that looked at various amounts of dried mealworms feed to broiler chicks. At 10% of the dried food rations provided they found no differences in feed intake, weight gain or feed efficiency. However, the study is lacking in that it only followed the birds for 15 days.

 

[WHmarans]

Oh fantastic. I will start reading. Thank you.

Okay that makes a lot more sense! a mealworm can't be 50% methionine even on a dry weight basis. It can be close to that for total protein content on a dry weight basis. Looking at the Fish meal amino acid profile and the mealworm meal amino acid profile they definitely have some differences but possibly not enough to mean you couldn't substitute meal worm meal for fish meal in a diet. Maybe it wouldn't be ideal but it might be worth a try, particularly since you pointed out the study found that substituting 10% meal worms into the diet didn't result in differences in weight or other problems for the broiler chicks... at least not within the 15 days.

I have a recipe for chick feed and one for layer feed, and they use 21% to 22% fish meal by weight (these are dry feed recipes).

So it looks like they meal worms are just about 60% moisture content on a live weight basis and just about 25% total protein on a live weight basis.

As far as amino acid composition, it looks like in general it is lower in methionine than fish meal, higher in cystine and roughly similar in total protein content (as meal at least).

So being sloppy (because all these numbers vary depending on so many things anyway)..0.22 lbs of balanced feed.. I'm getting 1.2 oz live weight meal worms per day. lol. I will definitely look at it more before I decide what to try.

Thanks for the great sources!

I'm starting with how I would see meal worms fit into the feed recipes I have.. but it still doesn't really get at the question of how much I could add to a regular commercial layer or starter diet with out worry.

Stacking up assumptions terribly: If worms weigh 100 mg, and a full diet is 332 worms (really? 332 worms only weighs 1.2 oz?), then I'm guessing you wouldn't want to add meal worms to a complete diet more than something like 5 worms per day?

332 worms per day just seems like way too many as a full diet number. But then 0.22 lb dry feed per day seems like a lot too. And its not like I'm used to what 332 worms looks like in a chicken feed pan. I really still have no reality check. I need to buy some mealworms!

 

[DanaW]

That is a concern of mine as well. I feed mine organic feed, and then realize I am feeding them a steady treat diet of Chinese mealworms. I don't trust food from China. I'll start researching for some alternatives, maybe raise my own.

 

[WHmarans]

I bought some live mealworms to start a colony of them at home, and the container said they are 20% protein 60% moisture.... this is live.... That protein level probably wouldn't be harmful even if fed in fairly large amounts. So a lot of live mealworms just doesn't seem like it would be a problem.

 

[klapperdop]

Hi

I wonder if there is anybody here who have freeze dried their own mealworms. I am from South Africa and have tried the method of freezing them and then using our warmer draw because my oven lowest is 100 Degrees Celsius. However, my worms still turn dark brown/black even after just a little while there.

Who has got some ideas on this?

Regards

Tanya

 

[SoProlix]

Hi

I wonder if there is anybody here who have freeze dried their own mealworms. I am from South Africa and have tried the method of freezing them and then using our warmer draw because my oven lowest is 100 Degrees Celsius. However, my worms still turn dark brown/black even after just a little while there.

Who has got some ideas on this?

Regards

Tanya

Freeze dried mealworms aren't frozen and then dried. it's a special process whereby the freezing actually dries the material. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeze-drying. Probably not practical at home. You could try just drying them (without freezing) that might work. Freezing them first may cause water crystals to form that break down cells and cause the brown/black you're seeing as they thaw. Anybody tried to dry mealworms at home?