meal worm questions

[sashurlow]

I have two quick questions...
I don't have chickens or meal worms, so I was wondering when to get the meal worms.
How old do the birds need to be before they can eat meal worms?
on a separate question... what is a better bin to use, flat and wide or tall and skinny (plastic shoe box vs cat litter buckets)?
thanks,
Scott

 

[juliawitt]

I just buy mealworms. They are pretty cheap and I keep them in the fridge. My little gals have been having a mealworm, now and again, since they were a week old. They are 7 weeks old now. They just see me and run to be picked up and held. Mealworms are the way to a chickens heart!

 

[Flintrock]

I fed meal worms to chicks two weeks old. They love them. I did offer them starter grit at the same time and have had that available for them since that day. I read that their snacks or treats should not make up more than 10 percent of their total diet, so that has become my rule. Seemed like a safe percentage to me.

My worm boxes are 15"L x 10"W x 6"Deep. I don't know if they are the proper size, but they work great for me. Growing your own worms is much, much cheaper and in most cases yours will be better quality too.

 

[sillybirds]

Quote:
More surface area is better (i.e. flat and wide). You don't need to put more than 1 1/2 or so inches of bran in the container, so the container doesn't have to be too deep. I like to use several (well, for me that's a bit of an understatement

) of the 6 qt shoebox size plastic containers. The 16 qt Sterlite containers are a nice size, too.