Mealworm farming

[WestKnollAmy]

It is fantastic to see so many new "faces" on here!

I totally love that more folks are picking up on this as a great resource for their chickie babies!

I will be adding more videos of all age groups of my chickens eating the meal worms. My Ameraucanas love them so much that I am afraid I will lose fingers or perhaps an arm, if I am not careful! That will be an exciting video, for sure!

 

[hannakat]

Quote:
Maybe a wet paper towel placed on or in plastic. You don't want extra moisture to actually get into the substrate since that'll cause problems.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Quote:
With winter coming on here and soon we will be turning on our heat pump so it will make our air drier in the house, I am thinking we will be putting very damp paper towels, folded up on jar lids on the substrate. Since I cover my bins except for 2 corners I am hoping that will keep the humidity up in my bins enough they will continue to multiply. However, I plan to start with only one that way and see if it works.

I will be very interested in hearing from others.

ETA: I have humidity readers and plan to clip them on top of the bins at the openings to monitor them. Not sure if I can get a very accurate reading.

 

[galanie]

It's just amazing to me how fascinating these buggers are! And I'm so glad so many are joining the bandwagon. What I do sometimes is just put a few drops of water on the newspaper I have on top or give them a watery kind of thing like apples. Have to keep it up though in order to raise the humidity w/out creating a mold hazard.

WestKnollAmy's page would be AWESOME (more so than it already is!) by adding some of Hannacat's egg, etc. photos. Or, you know, Hannacat, you could always make your own page about them

Then you'd have all that research and wonderful pictures in one place!

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Hannakat has a great BYC page on raising meal worms. It is in her sig line! I love it!

I need to link to that, Trish. I don;t believe I will ever get as great of photos as you have with the eggs! That is just fantastic!

 

[Terri O]

I wasnt aware that they needed additional humidity. What is the optimum level for their reproduction? Thanks! T

 

[galanie]

Quote:
Am I ever silly! Of course she does! What was I thinking

But you know, Amy's page would benefit from those eggs pics and such hehe. I'm such an instigator sometimes.

 

[Smokin Silkies]

You could also up your humidity by using a small sponge? Thats what I do when I need to up the humidity in my incubators and my troughs are full

It would work with this too.

WestKnollAmy...I look forward to seeing that video

 

[Kassaundra]

Quote:
They drank the kool aid too!

 

[Kassaundra]

Quote:
New pupa today, actually I had one early developer last week, but this morning I have several.

10-05 new pupa


So it looks like 9 wks from pupa to pupa.
Is this consistant w/ everyone else?

Yesterday 10-10-11 I had my first second generation beetle, but my pupating mealies and my new beetles appear smaller then the original I bought at the pet store. I first noticed it in the mealies, but thought I wasn't remembering there size correctly, but now that I have new beetles I'm for sure they appear to be about 2/3 rd's the size of the original beetles. Anyone else experience this?

So far it is 69 days from pupa to pupa generation,
but 63 days beetle to beetle generation, so my colony seeems to be speeding up. Someone else mentioned their frass was warm to the touch I wonder if they are warming their own environment enough to speed up the change, a little micro climate?