Mealworm farming

[binders]

Anyone else as obsessive about their mealworms as I am? I check them several times a day and sort out all the pupa and transfer any beetles. I must do this 3 to 4 times a day. I think I need a life!!

 

[gale65]

Quote:
Come on over. I need to separate out my hundreds of thousands (I exaggerate just a little) of beetles and dead worms soon. I don't wanna.

 

[galanie]

Well I'm slowly building mine back up after losing so many to a moth infestation. I have one bin that still has a few but I'm sifting through and pulling out the wads of stuff that is the moth cocoon. There's fewer and fewer in there and that combined with screening means that I might save that bin yet. That bin was made by me pulling beetles out of an infested bin and putting them in this one with bedding that had been frozen. Evidently a few eggs stuck to the beetles themselves otherwise there'd be no moths at all. But it is getting lots and lots of little wormies at last! I'm just leaving them in there, worms, beetles, pupae and all till I get a ton of them.

I have another bin and it is moth free that I'd pulled out pupae only and put in there. Not a lot of mealies yet but the population is slowly building up. I'm too cheap and hard headed to just go buy a bunch more mealies to rebuild with even though that would be the easiest way to go.

One thing I have found is that they do better if I take an eye dropper and drip a few droppers full of water onto their newspaper every day (or every other day or whenever I remember to do it lol). It dries quickly enough so that there's no moisture problem and I think they like the extra moisture. Very different from when I put in something like an apple slice that molds pretty fast.

 

[jwcutt]

Good Morning, I am still pretty new to the site, been raising chickens for about 9 months now, and decided to get a mealworm farm going. I found a person locally that raises them for a zoology class and was given about 6 breeding pair of bettles, about a dozen larva, and about 500 worms. I just set them up in jars at the moment, but have a bunch of old bins that I will be setting up today and putting the different stages in. Before I do that tho I have a few questions.

First, What do I use to clean out the bins? Is soapy water sufficient or should i go a bit further with bleach?
Second, I had read about using chicken grower/layer mash as a substrate and feed, is this a good idea? I could use wheat but having a difficult locating it in more than what you can get at the grocery store. My local feed stores dont carry it at the moment, not sure if its because of the drought (in south texas) we have been in or not, but their all out.

The person I got the "starter kit" used oats, but I seem to have a problem seeing the larva in that.

I am thinking chicken mash because figured it was what the chickens eat anyways.

Let me know your opinions please.

Thanks in advance
Jason

 

[Kassaundra]

jwcutt, layer feed is what I use and they seem to be doing great. I use half pellets and half crumbles. I was reading info where people are adding all kinds of additives to the substrate like powdered milk and other stuff, so I thought the layer food already took care of that for me and I am very lazy about my meal worm farm. All one bin, no moving them around or anything. I do make sure they have plenty of veggie material to eat though.

 

[oneofseven]

I would not use the starter feed. It has antibiotics and some have dewormers. Kinda counterproductive if you ask me.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Hi Jason!
Welcome to the mealie wagon!

I would use soapy water to clean the bins out. I seldom use bleach on much of anything but I am also one that believes that germs are good and have a place in our lives.

I have never used anything except oats and wheat bran as substrate. I know my chick starter is milled locally and very heavy so I don't use any of that. I am afraid it would pack too hard. Whatever you use, I suggest putting in the freezer for about 24-48 hours, depending on how big the bags are that you put in. If I use a grocery bag then I do 48 hours, zip lock bags are for 24 hours. Works for me so far.

I know I have had several people that have bought mealies from me that say they are having trouble finding the wheat bran. I can get it from 3 different feed stores around me. Praise be, since it is fairly cheap, imo.

I used oats to start with, as well since I had it on hand to feed my chicks and chickens but it is really expensive and I also had a hard time seeing the pupae in it. Once I switched to wheat bran I have been much happier.

Whatever you do, have fun. It has been a great adventure for me so far!

 

[hannakat]

Welcome Jason! Looks like your questions were answered so I'll just say.... have fun with your farm!!!

 

[galanie]

So far as wheat or bran from the feed store, the reason they don't have it is because bugs get into it too fast. That's what I was told at a local feed store. They will order them if you pay up front though. That's how I got a bag of wheat. I'm in Houston Texas, not exactly south Texas but I'm from south Texas so I know what you're talking about there.

 

[jwcutt]

Ok I managed to find wheat bran at a feed store a few towns over yesterday. I sorted out the first batch of 500 larva that I had gotten from the pet store on the 14th of october (now known as batch 1) and had sitting in cornmeal and oats. So far looks like 13 of them progressed to pupa... YaY!!! I noticed tho that there were about 90 larva that had turned tan from the darker brown and they were not moving much, if at all, till i picked them up. Is that what they do before moving on to the pupa stage? Out of the 500 it seems that ~400 of the 500 (although I had fed ~50 to my chickens) previously refrigerated larva have survived the last week or so, I had figured many more would be dead at this point. I received a batch from a local breeder (known as batch 2). I have not added them to the wheat just yet but will be later today. These have never been refrigerated so I am hoping for a better survival rate.

oh and Binders, I have only been raising the mealworms (well better to call it watching mealworms since I have not really done much but read and observe) for just over a week. I do check my tubs about once an hour, the same as I do with my chickens as long as I am home. Obsessive? Maybe

Also, The wheat bran came in a 50 pound bag, I used about 4 or 5 pounds of it, and sealed the rest in a 25 gallon air tight sealed bin. What the heck do i do with it tho? I cant imagine using that much in a couple of years, and surely it would go bad before then. Guess I need to figure out what it can be used for and how long it will store... time for more reading

Jason