Mealworm farming

[buttercup95]

So how many dead worms do you find on average? do you find some everyday or just every few days. I seem to be losing around 3 or 4 a day...

 

[Nomibear]

I am the kind of girl who likes to read the whole book, from the beginning. But this thread really is as long as a book! After the first 50 pages, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing this... One question I didn't see in the first 50 pages. Is it ever Too Hot for them? I would like to keep them in the shed with the chicken feed. But in south central Tx, it can easily reach 115+? In there. Any advice?

 

[MalMom]

I am the kind of girl who likes to read the whole book, from the beginning. But this thread really is as long as a book! After the first 50 pages, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing this... One question I didn't see in the first 50 pages. Is it ever Too Hot for them? I would like to keep them in the shed with the chicken feed. But in south central Tx, it can easily reach 115+? In there. Any advice?

I have one of my bins on my enclosed patio. The thermometer out there says it gets close to 110 sometimes. I lost a lot of beetles in one week that was really hot. I don't know if it got too hot for them, if I didn't have enough moisture in there for them, if they were going to die anyway, or if it was a combination of things. I would say if it is 115 outside, it will be much hotter in your shed. I would think that is too hot for them. If you do put them there, make sure they have lots of moisture, and ventilation.

 

[MalMom]

If yo go to Amazon.com, Rainbow Mealworms has 1000ct worms for $1.99 and free UPS Next Day shipping for zip codes beginning with 891-935 ordered Mon-Thursday before noon. Sadly I don't live in a zip code with those numbers. But if you do, that's a GREAT deal!

 

[Nomibear]

I have one of my bins on my enclosed patio. The thermometer out there says it gets close to 110 sometimes. I lost a lot of beetles in one week that was really hot. I don't know if it got too hot for them, if I didn't have enough moisture in there for them, if they were going to die anyway, or if it was a combination of things. I would say if it is 115 outside, it will be much hotter in your shed. I would think that is too hot for them. If you do put them there, make sure they have lots of moisture, and ventilation. 

Thank you so much for the reply.
Our heat highs here reach maybe 105* I only remember 115* once when I was a teenager. I would really rather not have them in the house, but maybe I need to put a thermometer in there for a bit first...

 

[chrissyr]

Darkling beetles are hosts of tapeworms. It didn't say anything about meAlworm stage though. So many people feed them, I don't see the worms having worms. Lol but I do not know. Will try to find out

I'm thinking that if you raise your mealworms in a clean place and nothing else that carries tapeworms has access to your bins, they shouldn't have tapeworms. Just my two cents on the matter.

I hope raising them yourself helps. It kinda freaked me when I read it. But, not all of my birds had tapes, so maybe they ate a fly or slug and got them. Most don't have them, so that's a plus.

 

[SowdersHomestead]

I've been looking for a way to supplement the foraging in the winter time with the sprouts. Seems like this is the way to go

 

[buttercup95]

I just got my first beetles today and it's been about one week since I noticed pupa. I still don't have a shelf system all I have is a bin and I just gave up collecting pupa I stopped at a count of 100. Does anyone know how many eggs a beetle lays?

 

[AliNaz]

Anybody in Central Florida buy from Rainbowmealworms.net? I'm thinking about ordering some, but it's so hot here that I'm afraid that they won't make it alive.
Has anybody ordered from Uncle Jim's worm farm? They offer free shipping and have a live guarantee.

 

[jimmywalt]

In February I ordered 1000 meal worms. I originally had them in 4 containers, but one had oat bran as a test and they didn't seem to like to dig in so I split them up and moved them into the other 3. they went from worms to pupae to beetles and I seemed to have plenty wheat bran, but a few weeks ago I noticed there was more frass than substrate. so I brought some more wheat bran and added it in, last week I noticed that all the wheat bran had been consumed.... yikes so I decided to sift through, gave the dead beetles to the girls, and basically get the worms/beetles/pupae out of the nasty frass and skin. holy moley, I've only done two of the three containers because it look a LOT longer than I had anticipated, but I was sooo surprised with how much they multiplied. by the time I was almost done there was 50 or so that either fell onto the newspaper or still in the squash I had in there, so I just gave that all to the birds. i'm afraid that they're going to eat all the new substrate quickly again after seeing that they can do to a squash chunk in a day. Now I see why people just so ahead and put them in a 10G tank. At this point I wouldn't feel bad about giving them lots and lots of worms and I think i'd have plenty reproducing for winter.

I started mine about 3 weeks ago in a 10 gallon fish tank. 500 mealworms from Pet Co for about $7 bucks. I have about 70 pupa and about 10 beetles already. I have mine in rolled oats (like Quaker oats) and they seem to be doing fine.