Mealworm farming

[crazy huhn]

http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=live+mealworms

Not to badmouth anybody, but PLEASE check out the above website: There is bulk for everything and everyone. This is were a company mentioned on here a lot , receives their supplies from what I have been told by one of their former employees at our last poultry meet-up. Breeding the worms here in the USA would be so much more costly and labor intensive. Shipments in big containers from China to Long Beach, California to their facility. All they do is unpack, refresh bran and moisture source, repack and ship straight to your door. Yes, mealworms DO get shipped alive from China to the US market.
As always, you get what you pay for....

 

[jenneverett]

ok so i took a look with a higher magnification and have circled the real eggs in my paint program



i was so excited that my "farm" was doing so well! in most of the videos i watched nobody showed pics of the eggs but i did watch one where the gal put cut up squares of cloth into the beetle bin and they laid the eggs into the channels created by the fabric when made. so i knew the approximate size of what i was looking for. but nobody ever shows frass other than to show it as a fine substrate at the bottom of the bin. i know in my main bin i have a more powdery buildup with granules on the bottom.

 

[aart]

ok so i took a look with a higher magnification and have circled the real eggs in my paint program



i was so excited that my "farm" was doing so well! in most of the videos i watched nobody showed pics of the eggs but i did watch one where the gal put cut up squares of cloth into the beetle bin and they laid the eggs into the channels created by the fabric when made. so i knew the approximate size of what i was looking for. but nobody ever shows frass other than to show it as a fine substrate at the bottom of the bin. i know in my main bin i have a more powdery buildup with granules on the bottom.

Great photos...thanks so much for taking, highlighting and posting them!!

 

[kubotafoot]

here is the set up and some pics


















OK....Now I am really confused here.....Eggs should be uniform in structure, right? What I see here are all different sizes and shapes and colors. This is what I thought the manure looked like and/or the bedding/food being eaten down and gotten into smaller and smaller sized pieces. Those 4 quite white odd shaped pieces on the eye and nose of the dime are eggs? Or if you go to the space off the head of the man, still on the dime...Those are also eggs in white? How about the darker tan colors above the date? Is the orange-like colored stuff the exoskeleton? Don't mean to be so very anal about it all, but for the life of me, I can't imagine eggs being so odd and dis-similar in shape and was always told the eggs from these beetles were microscopic. If these really are the eggs, it sure makes a great case for never sifting and throwing out the tiny sifted material!

 

[katatonic123]

I have a beetle!

 

[greasemonkey88]

I have a beetle!

Whoop whoop! That's awesome. I just put mine in their 10 gal "sweater" container today. Will have to post pics later.

 

[jenneverett]

Originally Posted by jenneverett

OK so i took a look with a higher magnification and have circled the real eggs in my paint program



i was so excited that my "farm" was doing so well! in most of the videos i watched nobody showed pics of the eggs but i did watch one where the gal put cut up squares of cloth into the beetle bin and they laid the eggs into the channels created by the fabric when made. so i knew the approximate size of what i was looking for. but nobody ever shows frass other than to show it as a fine substrate at the bottom of the bin. i know in my main bin i have a more powdery buildup with granules on the bottom. in this photo i did circle the eggs... not all of them but a good many.
so again in my excitement i assumed erroneously that all the itty bitty specs were eggs..but i diligently did as asked and magnified them using my macro feature and was able to see the error of my ways. i apologize profusely for my assumption.

 

[kendles]

Cute foto, better than whatever you had up there before. Really, you're doing all this for the wild birds? Why not get a couple of chickens, They'll at least love you back for all your work? Today I heard the kind of cute sounds I knew were not coming from any of our local birds, so held still hoping to be able to see what was making them. It was a conure or lovebird. Very small parrots. It took off, but a conure has all the charm and talking ability of a big one in a very small convienient package. I had one. I should have fed it mealies!

Photo - thanks Ken and I were at Lowe's goofing off and he started taking pictures. I got my turn at taking his too ;-)
We only have a little Miniature Parrot now, called a Parrotlet, his name is Willie and is scared to death of the Mealies LOL... I live in the City and they do not permit chickens, not even one. Talking parrots, we had an African Grey that we had since she pipped through the egg, we named her Fuzzy aka Miss Blabber Mouth. That girl talked up a storm, and loved when you talked on the phone, she would join right in on the conversation. She was 24 years old. Don't know what happened. We came home one day and she was lifeless on the floor of her play stand. Then our Blue Fronted Amazon, he was a closet talker. Was a great conversationalist when he was alone. He was a little odd. We had a Muloccan Cockatoo that kept you laughing. She loved to dance and sing. I had a sun conure *ACK* loud and screechy, 3 different Lovebird's, them suckers became mature and very protective of their cage and would draw blood you come near. I hand fed and raised probably a thousand birds for breeders and pet stores.

What did the little bird look like? Unfortunately, this is the time of year people do not think about the flight ability of their birds, doors and windows open and it doesn't take but *snap* that long and they are gone. If available, and empty cage, place some millet inside, place where bird is being seen. Maybe you can be an angel and save the little bird. They have no ability to hunt for food, since they have been bred as domestic birds, the instinct is absent. Good luck!

Phew --- TMI huh

 

[kendles]

I have a beetle!

I feel your excitement. I cheated. I bought some. I am too impatient.

 

[kendles]

Originally Posted by jenneverett

OK so i took a look with a higher magnification and have circled the real eggs in my paint program


Thanks Jenn. The green was hard to see, but I zoomed in and was able to see them. I am OLD and my eyes are --- sadly, old too