Mealworm farming

[Chicks Galore3]

Patience, folks!! If you trail your fingers through the top of the bedding and don't see 'the ground move', don't bother looking yet. They're still WAAAYYY too small to be worth feeding (and the chicks just look at your fingertip and go, Huh? Nothing there!). Wait another week to two weeks and you'll start actually seeing mealies without a microscope.

(As for sorting out the fuzzies, don't worry so much about handling your beetles and mealies and even your pupa--I spent the summer hand-sorting the dratted things to get grey fuzzy webspinning things out of the substrate and it didn't hurt the mealies a bit! I do minimize pupa handling though--just pull them out, feed the smallest to the chicklets, and put the rest in a separate small dish to incubate/hatch. A small chunk of carrot does the trick of collecting newly hatched beetles, and I just pick off the malformed, toss them to the VERY friendly, seemingly-STAAARRRRVING hens, and the carrot chunk along with the tender light colored beetles goes into the beetle bin. As it got colder, saw more malformed beetle hatches but just fed 'em out and no worries.)

Thank you sooooooooooooooo much! I really, really, REALLY didn't want to dump my farm!

 

[Bmmjz Chicks]

How big does my second generation of meal worms need to be before I should feed them? It has been 6 weeks since my first beetles appeared in the first generation and now the baby meal worms are about 3/16" long in a separate bin. I through a potato piece in there just to see them, but should they be fed regularly?

 

[Dee Dee 2]

Some where in B. C. web site there is a fablous article on "How to raise meal worms." It tells you every thing you need to know. Sorry don't have time to find it right now.

 

[Chicks Galore3]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-raise-mealworms Here is some GREAT info!

 

[NHsolarguy]

Hi Folks,

I just dug a new pond on my back 40, and am planning to stock it with fish this spring. I was thinking of throwing in a handful of meal worms every day to feed my fishies (which will eventually feed me). A couple of questions:

What's the lowest temperature mealworms will survive? Obviously, in winter my pond will be frozen, so I'd want to slow down the process. Is a 50F basement too cold to keep them alive but slow down production? Can I put them out in a shed with cold temps (down to about 0F in NH winters)? Conversely, the same shed in the summer will heat up to the 90-100F range. Will that be too hot?

Second question: I've read several posts about 3-drawer systems and moving pupae or beetles from one drawer to the other. How do you do this? Pick them out by hand? Sounds a little too labor-intensive for me... Would a cat-poop scooper sift them out? Or maybe I could make some scoops out of various sized screens to separate worms from pupae from beetles? Is size a sortable feature?

Thanks,
Mike.

 

[Kassaundra]

Hi Folks,

I just dug a new pond on my back 40, and am planning to stock it with fish this spring. I was thinking of throwing in a handful of meal worms every day to feed my fishies (which will eventually feed me). A couple of questions:

What's the lowest temperature mealworms will survive? Obviously, in winter my pond will be frozen, so I'd want to slow down the process. Is a 50F basement too cold to keep them alive but slow down production? Can I put them out in a shed with cold temps (down to about 0F in NH winters)? Conversely, the same shed in the summer will heat up to the 90-100F range. Will that be too hot?

Second question: I've read several posts about 3-drawer systems and moving pupae or beetles from one drawer to the other. How do you do this? Pick them out by hand? Sounds a little too labor-intensive for me... Would a cat-poop scooper sift them out? Or maybe I could make some scoops out of various sized screens to separate worms from pupae from beetles? Is size a sortable feature?

Thanks,
Mike.

50' will not be to cold to make them dormant but survive, however the 0' would kill them. The summer temps of 90-100 but out of sun will be fine. If you plan on having them outside or in unprotected barn you will NEED something more secure then the 3 drawer method, these are tasty treats to not only many other insects, but all forms of rodents, reptiles, and mamals. They can easily be grown in one container w/o having to move them they are not very cannabilistic if they have other food sources. However if you plan on feeding these out you may reconcider letting them go dormant for a whole season, I would use that time to build my colony numbers for the feed out season, you will go through lots more then you can grow.

 

[DMRippy]

Hi Folks,

I just dug a new pond on my back 40, and am planning to stock it with fish this spring. I was thinking of throwing in a handful of meal worms every day to feed my fishies (which will eventually feed me). A couple of questions:

What's the lowest temperature mealworms will survive? Obviously, in winter my pond will be frozen, so I'd want to slow down the process. Is a 50F basement too cold to keep them alive but slow down production? Can I put them out in a shed with cold temps (down to about 0F in NH winters)? Conversely, the same shed in the summer will heat up to the 90-100F range. Will that be too hot?

Second question: I've read several posts about 3-drawer systems and moving pupae or beetles from one drawer to the other. How do you do this? Pick them out by hand? Sounds a little too labor-intensive for me... Would a cat-poop scooper sift them out? Or maybe I could make some scoops out of various sized screens to separate worms from pupae from beetles? Is size a sortable feature?

Thanks,
Mike.

I am not sure about the lowest temp, but 0 will not work... they would die. 60-65 would slow them down. They like warm areas better. Some people keep them in the incubator.

I do think the 3 draw system is too labor intensive. I use 2. The breeders in the top and the eggs and little worms fall through. I can clean the bottom out and have them all about the same age in a tote.

 

[Chicks Galore3]

Hi Folks,

I just dug a new pond on my back 40, and am planning to stock it with fish this spring. I was thinking of throwing in a handful of meal worms every day to feed my fishies (which will eventually feed me). A couple of questions:

What's the lowest temperature mealworms will survive? Obviously, in winter my pond will be frozen, so I'd want to slow down the process. Is a 50F basement too cold to keep them alive but slow down production? Can I put them out in a shed with cold temps (down to about 0F in NH winters)? Conversely, the same shed in the summer will heat up to the 90-100F range. Will that be too hot?

Second question: I've read several posts about 3-drawer systems and moving pupae or beetles from one drawer to the other. How do you do this? Pick them out by hand? Sounds a little too labor-intensive for me... Would a cat-poop scooper sift them out? Or maybe I could make some scoops out of various sized screens to separate worms from pupae from beetles? Is size a sortable feature?

Thanks,
Mike.

You could also freeze dry the extra ones, to keep for summer or for another use.

 

[NHsolarguy]

What size screen have you got on the top drawer? Is that using something like rolled oats? Do you put fruit and vegetable leftovers in both levels? Or do the goodies go mostly to the growing worms?

Thanks!

 

[onafixedincome]

Temperatures: Minimum working temp is about 40*, with 60 and up being best--yes, even to temps of 90-100*F. After this winter, despite the hardiness displayed by mine at 30-40*F, I won't be keeping them over winter again unless I can manage to make a warmer area for them! The thought is to make a cabinet with ledges to slide the boxes in and out on, with a sealed metal enclosure at the bottom for a string of Christmas lights--they put out a fair amount of warmth, but I don't want the dust in with the hot stuff! Suppose I could run strings through metal pipes across under each bin, too...if needed...I want that area to run at least 60*.

Sorting out worms isn't as complicated as I made it at first . Now I grab a small plastic shoebox, toss in a large handful of substrate and worms, and then toss it like I was sauteeing Chinese food--as you flip the bedding at the far end of the box, the worms will fall forward toward you. Practice a bit, and you'll see. Mind you, this is with straight bran bedding; it might or might not work as well with others.

As cold as your pond will get in winter, you may want to talk to other aquaculturists in the area to see how they manage winter ponds.

Luck!