Mealworm farming

[Latestarter]

So just on a whim, I decided my beetles have had plenty of time for making eggs, and the eggs have had plenty of time to hatch, so, I did a little digging and I have THOUSANDS of baby worms!!

and MAN are they TINY!

they are also very fast!

it took some tries to actually get the below pictures before they would disappear back into the mix. You can get an idea of their size as there are oat grains and beetles in the pictures along with the babies. A couple more weeks and my chicks are gonna be eatin' worms!

The babies seem to be concentrated down deeper than the beetles, in the wheat bran below the oats. I did see some on some dried up cantaloupe rinds.

 

[aart]

Those are actually pretty big, when my first eggs hatched I only saw the bran heaving couldn't even see the larvae for a couple weeks.

 

[jenneverett]

Those are actually pretty big, when my first eggs hatched I only saw the bran heaving couldn't even see the larvae for a couple weeks.

i think i have to agree here... i have had all my 5000 worms change from the worm stage and now have very many pupae but tons of beetles.
so i looked through the substrate combing it with my fingers to uncover the elusive tiny worms..... i saw many flakes of bran move and flutter if you will.... but even with my camera on macro i couldn't see any baby worms. so yes i believe they are super small but there all the same.

 

[dharmasister]

I received my order of mealworms from Rainbow last week.  I ordered 1000 mixed size to add to the 100 large mealworms I had bought at PetSmart. The order came very quickly and I was happy with the customer service, but out of 1000 only a handful were very big.  they are all quite small.  About two dozen of my large, PetSmart mealies had already pupated.  I didn't think the little, bitty Rainbow mealies would pupate until they had grown a lot but many of them have pupated in the last couple of days.  They are SMALL!!!  The little pupae and mealworms both came from rainbow. The larger are from my original colony. Does anyone know whether they will get larger as beetles? Is there any way I can stop them from pupating until they get bigger? I feel like I'm going to be stuck with a colony of shrimpy, little mealworms and beetles!!! My girls want big, fat, juicy mealworms to snack on - not these little, runty mealworms!!

 

[chickensfinally]

Hey all, I just wanted to share this pic of the pupae I separated out of my bin. I keep it in the big bin with it lid mostly on top and a few mini carrots sliced in two. I found when I lift that mini tub up.....beetle porn!!! I check it several times a day, and move new beetles out and new pupa in. I'm so excited to have so many doing so well --Carrie

 

[subhanalah]

Hey all, I just wanted to share this pic of the pupae I separated out of my bin. I keep it in the big bin with it lid mostly on top and a few mini carrots sliced in two. I found when I lift that mini tub up.....beetle porn!!! I check it several times a day, and move new beetles out and new pupa in. I'm so excited to have so many doing so well --Carrie

that's awesome! So glad it's being productive for you.

 

[Tourist9394]

I have a problem, all my worms turned in to beetles, but there are no larvaes. It has been 3 months since I brought the mealworms in larvae form. Any reason why no babies? Should I wait a little longer?

 

[aart]

I have a problem, all my worms turned in to beetles, but there are no larvaes. It has been 3 months since I brought the mealworms in larvae form. Any reason why no babies? Should I wait a little longer?

After beetles come eggs, then little tiny, tiny larvae that are almost impossible to see for a couple weeks.
The only way I knew the eggs had hatched was the wheat bran was moving.

This website has a good timeline for each stage of life...the ranges are dependent on warmth, the warmer the environment the quicker they go thru the stages.

 

[evemfoster]

I received my order of mealworms from Rainbow last week. I ordered 1000 mixed size to add to the 100 large mealworms I had bought at PetSmart. The order came very quickly and I was happy with the customer service, but out of 1000 only a handful were very big. they are all quite small. About two dozen of my large, PetSmart mealies had already pupated. I didn't think the little, bitty Rainbow mealies would pupate until they had grown a lot but many of them have pupated in the last couple of days. They are SMALL!!! The little pupae and mealworms both came from rainbow. The larger are from my original colony. Does anyone know whether they will get larger as beetles? Is there any way I can stop them from pupating until they get bigger? I feel like I'm going to be stuck with a colony of shrimpy, little mealworms and beetles!!! My girls want big, fat, juicy mealworms to snack on - not these little, runty mealworms!

The finished beetles size depends solely on their pupa size they wont grow larger after the pupa turn into a beetle. Mealworms do all there growing at the worm stage so the finished beetle size depends on how well the worms were fed and watered as worms. Mealworms simply have a limited number of molts before they pupate so if they are short on ether food or water you can get smaller worms and beetles. I have also had smaller beetles during colder weather but a big outfit like Rainbow should have heated buildings, so it shouldn't be that much of a factor.

The good news is the smallness isn't passed on to the next generation of worms. They will be just as large as your home grown ones as it looks like you have the knack for raising large healthy worms .

 

[evemfoster]

The worms come up under the moisture source and eat off the bottom edges of the moist food. As the worms move about the moisture source tends to sink into the bedding allowing more worms to get a drink. I found that if you put it on plastic lid the smallest worms have difficulty getting to the moisture source.

Some other things i tried:

I put the moisture source on a paper towel, the worms ate through the towel to get to the bottom of the moisture source, that wasn't too bad but I found that anything I put into the worm farm eventually had to be removed and put into the garbage. By the time I removed the plastic, lid, towel, TP tubes or whatever they were fairly unpleasant to work with, well chewed, smelly and covered with worm dust and tended to have worm eggs or tiny worms attached no matter how hard you tried to get them all off. I believe the removal of these objects is what eventually spread mealworms out into my garage. The garbage cans were beside the garage door. To simply keep things more contained i make a point of never adding non-edible objects into my farm anymore.


Quote:

To help hold the weight of the bedding in your worm farm your screen needs to be attached inside the bin with the hot melt glue. A good thick layer of glue deep enough that the screen is well covered and the plastic of your bin and the glue become one unit. You may need to make sure the glue is extra hot. If you dribble a little glue out onto the middle of the screen don't remove it. After the screen is hot it weakens the metal in the screen enough that the worms can eventually chew through it. So you will want all the metal that gets heated well covered with hot melt glue.

The screen will last far longer if it is mounted inside the bin and the screen is one large screen that covers the whole bottom of the bin corner to corner, the extra screen will help support the weight while being held up by the plastic supports you left in the bottom of the bin.