Mealworm farming

[CluckyJay]

If you allow them to pupate and then mate, you will get a lot of mealworms in return. I am not feeding any of mine to the chickens yet--they have all nearly pupated and laid eggs. I am about to have several thousand mealworms from the 1,000 I bought!

You can feed the beetles to chickens too though.

 

[hannakat]

Quote:
Is that a bad thing? Let us know how you plan to feed or what your goals are. Like CluckyJay said, your colony will skyrocket if you let them pupate then morph into beetles. You can put worms in the fridge to slow them down but when I did that, a portion of them didn't pupate correctly.

Try changing the veggies out every 2 days to avoid mold issues. Celery, kale, cucumber, lettuce, dandelion stems, zucchini, summer squash, apple, banana peel. Just about everything will mold if it doesn't get consumed quickly though.

Barley? cool...let us know how that works! Pupae are easy to see in wheat bran and if you grind up the oats (I do that and add wheat flour, a touch of corn meal and some powdered milk) it works the same and makes it easy to find everything.

Keep us posted!!!

 

[DMRippy]

Quote:
Is that a bad thing? Let us know how you plan to feed or what your goals are. Like CluckyJay said, your colony will skyrocket if you let them pupate then morph into beetles. You can put worms in the fridge to slow them down but when I did that, a portion of them didn't pupate correctly.

Try changing the veggies out every 2 days to avoid mold issues. Celery, kale, cucumber, lettuce, dandelion stems, zucchini, summer squash, apple, banana peel. Just about everything will mold if it doesn't get consumed quickly though.

Barley? cool...let us know how that works! Pupae are easy to see in wheat bran and if you grind up the oats (I do that and add wheat flour, a touch of corn meal and some powdered milk) it works the same and makes it easy to find everything.

Keep us posted!!!

I have about 50 birds now and putting 3 doz in the incubator this week. I would like to supplement daily because they don't get to free range. The barley is working fine so far. It is actually spent barley from a brewery we use to supplement chicken feed to cut feed cost and up their protein some. I also use layer mash they do seem to like that.

Maybe my feeding problem is because they are all pupating? They did seem to eat the zucchini best but maybe there where just not enough for the about I was putting in the bin. Celery... maybe that would last longer. The carrots just shriveled up to toothpicks. I am not really having a mold problem the food just drys out without being eaten. I don't want a mold problem so I don't use stuff that is too wet like cucumbers or apples. I could try them and use paper under it like I saw posted earlier.

 

[hannakat]

That's a lot of beaks to please!!

I know what you mean about avoiding a mold problem

Putting it on top of paper, cardboard or plastic really works well (that's what I do with the more juicy veggies such as cucumber) and I TRY to limit the size of the veggies to how fast they're consuming it.

If the carrots are not being eaten, it's too much for the size of the colony. Just adjust the amount. When you have thousands of wormies...it'll get eaten. Pupae don't eat...they're dieting.

They can go for a while without a moisture source, too, btw. They do seem to pupate faster with a moisture source so that might be a way to slow them down a bit ??? something to experiment with! hahahaaaa

 

[CluckyJay]

I didn't check the humidity levels in my bins but, when there was hardly any humidity, they started dying quickly, too much humidity and they were pupating incorrectly with messed up wings.

My wad of damp paper seems to keep the bins humid enough without being too humid. They LOVE it, I think they are actually eating the toilet paper though, lol. I noticed a lot of the beetles trying to pupate right next to the damp paper. Hmm.

 

[Czech's_chicks]

I will be starting this project today when I get home from work. My daughter has been buying them for her three fat-tail leopard geckos and I have been thinking about it for the quail and chicken treats...well I have committed to some containers that I think may be too smal for my worm bins so we will read through this and gitter done!

 

[hannakat]

Welcome to the farm Czech's_chicks!

 

[hannakat]

Update on freezing the wormies:

They freeze very well (and quickly). I took some out of the freezer and left them at room temperature. I checked them a few minutes later and they had the consistency of a live mealie. Only thing is they didn't wiggle.

I left them there for a few hours and noticed that they started turning black. At that point I fed them to the chickadees.

So...at this point, I'm very happy with the frozen version and probably will not try drying them. If anyone wants me to continue the project to the drying point, let me know and I will, otherwise I'm satisfied with how to store them for the winter! This is gonna be so easy!

Trish

 

[Cakela]

For those of you who ordered from exoticnutrition, how long did it take you to get your wormies?

edit; wrote the company and wormies should be here tomorrow!

 

[Cakela]

Worms arrived! They are all happily eating their potato and carrot.