Mealworm farming

[azygous]

My farm is sitting on book shelves front and center in the living room right beside the wood stove. But then I've never been real keen on the fine furniture/interior decorating gambit. I still have the wooden Chinese fish crates in my living room that I had back in college, and I'm now 72. My friends and relatives have always been aware that I have skewed priorities.

I had a friend over for tea one day, and I got the worm bins down and put them on the kitchen table where we were drinking our tea. I started sorting the pupae from the larva and fished out the occasional beetle. She went, "Ewwww! The chickens whose eggs I eat eat THOSE BUGS?" But inside of ten minutes she was as engrossed with the worms as I was, going, "There's a pupae, there!"

If you have the right attitude, you can make anything seem normal.

 

[RedRapunzel]

10K worms ordered for our mixed flock of 16. We have a 3 bin system with maybe 50 beetles left from the 125 we purchased locally.

They are enjoying mango skins, mango pits, and dandelion flowers. Guess I need to add some wheat flour or germ to the mix since I should have new ones hatching to make it easier for them. However, I don't think anyone grinds the grain in silos for the wild ones to start a colony.....

I had a buddy who had a bad habit of sticking his nose in raw calamari or crab meat when he was trying to sniff it to see if it was spoiled. I could see him sucking up 20 or 30 mites on accident.....thanks for the laugh.

 

[chickenALD]

How does everyone handle company coming over to visit??
[/quote]
I do not thank it will be problem because only family comes over they know me. It may make dating more difficult or interesting.

 

[subhanalah]

Company? People don't want to come to my house...animals live here!

 

[K9Dave]

Company? People don't want to come to my house...animals live here!

If they don't like animals then I don't want to be friends with them. Ha.

 

[subhanalah]

If they don't like animals then I don't want to be friends with them. Ha.

that's what I've been sayin!

 

[Arielle]

OH, I know I am in the right crowd!! lol

Thanks for sharing.( still chuckling)

 

[Arielle]

What size mealworm does everyone have?? I have ben reading htere are 3 sizes-- based on the larvae/mealworm size. inch, inch and half, bigger ??

Can the dead bettles be fed to the chickens or is it not digestable for the chickens? or is it a bit of protein for the mealworms??

 

[dstinett]

Some of chickens eat dead bugs, some run.

 

[beverly evans]

The idea of using an older dresser is a great one! One thing, though. You will need to make the sides slippery and smooth so the worms and beetles can't get a grip on the wood grain to make an escape. If you have some scraps of linoleum, that would work, or line the drawers with 6 mil (heavy) plastic.

I would also line the bottoms of the drawers in case the beetles might develop a taste for wood. They love to eat newspaper, so wood might be on their menu, too.

Beyond that, there's not much else you'd need to do, unless you want to cut out holes in the drawers for the eggs to sift through.

No, no need to keep the drawers ajar.

Remember contact paper? Is that still around? That would be a perfect solution or one could paint the insides of the drawers. This is of interest to me because people put old dressers out on the street quite often here. What better way to recycle and you can even keep the supplies in one drawer???? Nice and tidy in the garage, not house, except perhaps the winter. I'm gonna do this.