Mealworm farming

[1brandy tim2]

Got my mealworm farm started last Wednesday!! Last night looked in there and counted 3 pupae ... Today 18!!! Woohoo awesome so cool to watch

 

[UrbanMamaHen]

I have so many beetles right now that I am afraid to lift the paper to check on them. The last time I did, they freaked me out. I must have several hunded beetles. If half of those are females, and if each of the females lay an average of 300 eggs, and if the eggs hatch, I would have ... a lot of worms. I had better not count my worms before they hatch. I hope to see baby worms soon.

 

[blackswamp]

I have been watching some youtube videos on mealworm breeding. One question I have is has anybody tried installing a screen under there beetles for the eggs to drop down into another container? Did you have success with it? To me this sounds like a good idea if it works.

Thanks
Jeff

 

[gaitngirl]

I have so many beetles right now that I am afraid to lift the paper to check on them. The last time I did, they freaked me out. I must have several hunded beetles. If half of those are females, and if each of the females lay an average of 300 eggs, and if the eggs hatch, I would have ... a lot of worms. I had better not count my worms before they hatch. I hope to see baby worms soon.

Wow! I only have a few beetles but I'm hoping they get busy and start making some babies soon. I know my chooks will be ever so happy this winter!

 

[UrbanMamaHen]

I have been very patient, allowing the worms to go through their lifecycle. So far, it has been relatively easy. I look toward to when I can feed my birds a small handful every week without depleting my colony.

 

[Dipstick]

Hi all.

I've been doing a lot of

, and before I get started, thank you for all that you have shared with the forum, both successes and failures.

Without going into a LOT of detail here for time sake, I have some comments as well as questions. See the pics below. Sorry for the fuzzies, but I have shaky hands, and clear pics are hard for me.

The first is my temp/humidity monitor. Rather cheap, around $20. Top is humidity and lower is temp. I use a common vaporizer from Wal-Mart which cost around $13, and I fill it morning and night... two gal a day total. One day I will get an automatic humidifier that I can set at a specific level and leave except to refill, and forget about it... but for now I am doing things the cheap way.

This pic was about 8 hours after last fill. This room is 8x8 and has a ceiling fan for circulation. I have a $20 ceramic heater for supplemental heating and I try to keep it around 84-86*F... this was a cold day and this room is isolated from the rest of the house for protection against allergies due to frass etc. so it was down to 79*, low but still acceptable.



Below is my new set up. In fact it is only 3 days old. Top is my worm bin. 5K went in about a week or two ago. Next down is my beetle bin. I cut out the bottom and hot glued aluminum window screen over the hole. At first I had it sitting over another bin of the same length and width dimensions only three times deeper to catch the eggs and babies, but I have changed to the 50 gal totes which allow it to sit snugly across the midsection. Both work well but since I am planning on commercial production and sales I want to be prepared for simple and easy. I want these as a primary food source for my chickens and my fish farm... and a lot extra to sell.

This seems to work really well for me so far. Again, I check this morning and night, and as beetles appear I scoop them up with the spoon or the 1/2 plastic coffee can lid you see in black on the desk, or I just stick my finger tip to them if they are on their backs, and when they cling to my finger I carry them out and shake them off into the beetle bin below. Funny, but it is the clinging crawling worms that give me the willies.

I currently place the pupae into the bottom gray tote to protect them from the others. Eventually I may simply stop separating altogether, but until I achieve a high level of success and population, I am concerned about maximizing my successes and preventing losses. Also, since I have no moisture source in the large pupae bin I have to make sure I check regularly for beetles so I can move them before they go cannibalistic.

Every bin has a layer of wheat bran in it as they did not like oats, and my worm bin also has Purina Worm Chow in one end.


OK, here is my

and only

. I have what seems to me to be a high death rate amongst the worms... not sure why. Also, I have noticed that they die primarily on only one end of the bin... and that mostly around the potatoes I give them for moisture, and also it seems to occur only when I give them something for moisture in general, even though the flock to whatever source of moisture I put in. Any ideas what is going on here?



In the below pics you can see the deaths are on the right side but not the left. The only difference is that the left is primarily the Worm Chow and little to no potatoes, and a low population by comparison, and the right is primarily the wheat bran and lots of potatoes and 2/3 of the population has migrated there. Also, interestingly, the pupation occurs predominantly wherever the potatoes are, or near by on that end.

What appears to be worms on the left is actually empty shells where they have molted and I blew them to the other end for the pics.







Finally, here is my beetle bin. The bread is potato bread, simply because that is the style I enjoy. But I use a spray bottle and spray this with enough water to wet it well, but not enough to soak through too much and definitely not enough to drip. They do not like fruits or potatoes or carrots, though they did seriously consider a cantaloupe rind... but this bread they swarm... and they do not leave it even when the lights come on and I am rudely scrutinizing them... unlike everything else where they run as soon as the light comes on.



OK, thanks in advance for your input. This is all probably normal for them, but I do not want to be irresponsible as a rancher... even if it is merely wormies that I am rustling.

Oh, and for those of you are surprised to find these things interesting, you are not alone. My wife thinks I have lost it. I seem to spend a lot of time with the worms, and most of it is just for the entertainment value.

Yeah, I know it's a sickness. But it's better than talking with the voices in my head

.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Dipstick, the excessive moisture is most likely killing them. I wouldn't add any moisture beyond that contained in relatively dry vegetables (carrots, potatoes, etc.). I live in one of the driest places on the planet, where humidity and annual rainfall are typically measured in single digits and my mealworms do very well. Your colony is most likely experiencing a fungal (entomopathogenic) or bacterial infection, which should run it's course once the moisture is removed.

BTW, welcome to

and welcome to our mealworm thread. Oh, what kind of fish are you raising?

 

[azygous]

I have been watching some youtube videos on mealworm breeding. One question I have is has anybody tried installing a screen under there beetles for the eggs to drop down into another container? Did you have success with it? To me this sounds like a good idea if it works.

Thanks
Jeff

My original three-drawer file box has the cut out bottom with window screening glued over it for the eggs to drop through into the tray beneath. It works terrific!

But the file box is way too small, and my worms began to crawl out and they took up residence in the inner spaces of the file box. I only noticed when worms began to appear on the floor under the boiler where the box is sitting. This has nothing to do with the screened bottom so the eggs drop through. But I then went to three larger trays to raise succeeding worm hatches.

But they all begin in the tray below the beetle tray with the screened bottom. I have beetles in the third drawer under the one with the eggs, but I need to periodically strain the eggs out of that drawer into the egg drawer. Way easier with the screened drawer automatically straining the eggs. Too bad the file box didn't come with four drawers.

 

[crowsnestfarms]

I was wondering if anyone had tried anything other than plastic totes to keep their meal worms in. I plan to try this asap but plastic totes are not a readily available commodity around my place. Does anything else work?

 

[bnewns]

I was wondering if anyone had tried anything other than plastic totes to keep their meal worms in. I plan to try this asap but plastic totes are not a readily available commodity around my place. Does anything else work?

Metal bins / filing cabinets - it has to be smooth otherwise they will climb out. 5 gallon water containers with the top cut off... just some ideas...