Mealworm farming

[WestKnollAmy]

I put mine in my incubator in the winter or rather, some of them. Not everything will fit with what i raise here. But some can go in the bathroom on the closet shelves and the door stays open about 1/4 of the way for humidity from showers and heat from that vent.

I have just started on bin on game bird starter to see if I can tell a difference. They sure love the wheat. And I think carrots are the best way to go, too. I do add some apple when I know I can remove anything not eaten (who AM I kidding?) the next day but cucumbers and such have just gone bad when added this summer. I lost an entire bin to mold because of that.

 

[Kassaundra]

Decades ago my uncle raised mealworms for finches in big numbers using a 44gallon metal drum in the shed into which he broke large chunks of unsliced stale bread turning the soft side down in the drum. Every day he harvested a huge handful of worms by lifting the crusts up to find lots of worms eating their way through the soft bread from underneath. Does anyone do the easy no-work stale crusty bread method, which seemed so simple and was larger scale?

I've just bought a small tub of mealworms and ordered a large bag of toss-out bread from the bakery tomorrow, so I hope I'm on the right track! Advice please?

I do that all the time to give them something to hide under and eat killing two birds w/ one stone. I have substrate also in the container though it's not all bread.

 

[onafixedincome]

Look around for whatchacallums...heating cables or pads for seed flats. They keep things in the mid 70's and don't eat a lot of power.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do this winter--thinking I will just dedicate a shelf in the garage, insulate the area with thick styrofoam, and que sera, sera. If I need to add heat, I can toss in some hot water bottles and seal it back up, I guess.

Another alternative would be to have containers of hay/horsemanure in or between each bin--not for the food or moisture, but for the heat of decay, kind of like they do fishing worm bins in the north areas. With the insulation, that might do the trick.

If I have to move them in, I'm going to have to SERIOUSLY rearrange things--there are a lot more bins now than when they moved out this spring! My house only stays around 60, though....

 

[bobbieschicks]

Decided to remove all the remaining beetles live and dead and fed them to the chicks. Boy were they excited to eat them. Only found about 20 in all three bins. So now I just have larva in all three bins.

 

[BeccaSmith]

Decided to remove all the remaining beetles live and dead and fed them to the chicks. Boy were they excited to eat them. Only found about 20 in all three bins. So now I just have larva in all three bins.

I have a three drawer system and one of the bins had a bunch of dead beetles in it with baby worms as well, so I took the bin out to the girls and they had a blast! I figured the baby worms were to small for them to pick out. The girls did a heck of a clean up job and I had fun watching them!

 

[WillsC]

Has anyone tried raising them on dried rabbit manure? I realize alfalfa (the main component in rabbit feed) isn't a grain but I wonder if it would work? The rabbit manure still has a lot of nutrients in it after passing through the bunny.

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

Well, it seems as though most of the ones who "came back to life" after the heat lamp incident have since died. On Tuesday I added 1500 more so I'm not really worried about that anymore. I keep putting potato and carrot slices in there and they pull them underneath the wheat bran and chow down. I worry that it's not all getting eaten and it will bring mold. I dig around and usually can't find any of the old food, so that's good. Once I got a half-chewed piece of potato and threw it away (it still had a few worms on it so I shook them off first, of course). Also, the wheat bran that they were packed in must have had a pest in it because I'm seeing a few little black bugs that don't look like beetles. Doesn't seem to be bothering the mealies but I worry it could get out of control. Any thoughts?

 

[bobbieschicks]

I did a careful clean out and thought I had removed all the beetles, but today I found a few more of them moving around. I put fresh carrots in there yesterday and noticed today the volumes of tiny worms eating the carrots when I lifted them up. Too oogy!

 

[gale65]

Too oogy!

haha! That reminds me of that movie Misery.

 

[onafixedincome]

Dried rabbit manure? Hm. Don't think so, but Heaven knows I have enough of the stuff to try it! Although the redworms do seem to get the better kick out of it--they LOVE alfalfa and bunny poo!

Think I'll leave the mealies in the wheat bran--since I am trialing feeding the mealies to some of the rabbits as a high protein supplement, I don't want to get into recycled parasites.