Mealworm farming

[BellevueOmlet]

I got my first batch of mealies from homegrown beetles!!!

 

[Kassaundra]

Quote:
mealies = good

b. dubia = good

bees = good

squash bugs = evil

 

[hannakat]

squash bug =

 

[homesteadinmama]

Question: what do you do with the shedded skins? Feed them to the chickens, throw them out or leave them be? I finally got 2000 worms, but half came with tons of shedded stuff.

 

[DMRippy]

Quote:
mealies = good

b. dubia = good

bees = good

squash bugs = evil

 

[Cakela]

Just ordered my wormies!

 

[hannakat]

Quote:

Quote:
You can take them outside and blow the exoskeletons out, which is one of the ways I get rid of them, or you can just leave them in. It's not anything the chickens will eat.

Glad to hear you can now start farming!


Cakela ~

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I have so many skins on the substrate it is unbelievable. I have not ever seen so many before but maybe I have way more than 5000 wormies shedding this time around? Or maybe they are overcrowded?
All the brown stuff you see the beetles wading through are skins!

Here is a neat photo of a baby mealie next to a tomato seed.

Each piece of food I put in the bin is attacked this way. I put in about 6-8 pieces of food a day in each bin and this is what it looks like in a matter of seconds. I find this fascinating!

And each piece of watermelon was consumed completely in less than 24 hours.

I think I have a pretty healthy colony for them to eat like this. At least some of them must be doing well to eat all this food!
This has been a fun adventure and I have learned a lot from this thread. Thank you, Trish for starting it and keeping it going!

 

[galanie]

I love your mealie pictures! Wow what a healthy, thriving colony!

I am starting mine over under a window screen to keep out the moths. Going to get away from the drawer system since moths can get in it so easy and nothing I do short of putting them in a tent of screening or something is keeping them out.

 

[hannakat]

AWESOME PHOTOS Amy!

You can tell by the amount of sheddings that the numbers are gonna surprise you!

U is a good mealie farmer and the chickadees are soooo lucky!