Mealworm farming

[Gallo del Cielo]

When you live in the frozen north, ya gotta do what ya gotta do....inside my house is usually about 62F in the winter.

Hey, I grew up just north and east of you. I remember those winters and I don't miss them one bit.

 

[zarafa121]

Ahhh thanks.

There's been much discussion about cannibalism. I know I've found parts of old(I think dead) beetles that I think the larvae have nibbled on even tho they had plenty of food and 'water'.

Being new at this, the learning is endless. I think I will start rotating the beetles out on a regular basis to another bin so the eggs and larvae have half a chance of surviving. I, too, read about the cannibalism, and being naive thought I could bypass all of the down sides of mealworm farming. After a good bout with the grain mites and now the beetles eating other beetles, I am being a little more realistic. I don't put newbies in right away, letting them darken and toughen up before introducing them to the beetle bin. I am trying to keep the moisture up with apple slices, but I know that when they attack it like pirhannas in the Amazon, I waited a little too long. These posts have been very helpful, and I hope what I experience will help others.

 

[aart]

Quote: Actually, most the discussions have been that there is not any cannibalism......I think there's some, but very little to rare and only under certain circumstances. Why I was glad you had noted your eyewitness account.

 

[Sarahsdawn]

Hi guys!

I'm brand new here. I'm not new to chickens exactly, I grew up in very rural NE OH, and our neighbors had chickens. Back then we bought the chicken (and free range duck!) eggs for a dollar a dozen. Store eggs just don't taste like them!

Now we (me, my hubs, and my 2 kids and various critters) live in Jax, Fl. At the moment, no fresh eggs till we buy our house. (We're still renting, no chickies allowed.) I'm raising mealies for our leopard geckos (one of our parrots likes them too, lol) and getting our numbers up so that next year when we get our baby chickies we'll have a great supply for them. We feed very few, and we're just boosting numbers.

We use a 3 bin method, with some extra random heated drawers for beebs. I have some that around around a month old that are teeny babies, and some that are only a week or so old and super tiny! The babies seem to be taking forever to grow, but I think it's the "pot that never boils" thing....if only I could stop watching them!

I'm currently on page 315 of this thread (reading the whole thing!) but I just had to create a member profile so I could say "HI!" Reading the posts from years ago is funny.....all of you must have huge colonies by now!

I've been reading about red wrigglers too which seems like it would be fun....maybe even an indoor setup so I can compost my parrots' newspapers. Dubia roaches seem really cool too, but I guess they are illegal in FL, so if I get those I'd have to become a criminal.

Anyways, just wanted to say "Hi!"

 

[zarafa121]

Hi guys!

I'm brand new here. I'm not new to chickens exactly, I grew up in very rural NE OH, and our neighbors had chickens. Back then we bought the chicken (and free range duck!) eggs for a dollar a dozen. Store eggs just don't taste like them!

Now we (me, my hubs, and my 2 kids and various critters) live in Jax, Fl. At the moment, no fresh eggs till we buy our house. (We're still renting, no chickies allowed.) I'm raising mealies for our leopard geckos (one of our parrots likes them too, lol) and getting our numbers up so that next year when we get our baby chickies we'll have a great supply for them. We feed very few, and we're just boosting numbers.

We use a 3 bin method, with some extra random heated drawers for beebs. I have some that around around a month old that are teeny babies, and some that are only a week or so old and super tiny! The babies seem to be taking forever to grow, but I think it's the "pot that never boils" thing....if only I could stop watching them!

I'm currently on page 315 of this thread (reading the whole thing!) but I just had to create a member profile so I could say "HI!" Reading the posts from years ago is funny.....all of you must have huge colonies by now!

I've been reading about red wrigglers too which seems like it would be fun....maybe even an indoor setup so I can compost my parrots' newspapers. Dubia roaches seem really cool too, but I guess they are illegal in FL, so if I get those I'd have to become a criminal.

Anyways, just wanted to say "Hi!"

Welcome to BYC and the mealworm thread! I get what you are saying about watching them all the time. It's an obsession. As you will read as you go, because of a grain mite infestation, I threw out the bin of whatever was smaller than I could see, and I am trying to be patient with the egg-laying process again. I have three bins going and a side bar of the pupae. BTW, I lived in a community between Orlando and Daytona many, many years ago. Again, welcome!

 

[Sarahsdawn]

We've actually been doing this for a couple of months. I started off by dumping 50 or so into a 10 gallon aquarium with a box full of oatmeal and a carrot. That seemed to keep them happier than just being in the pet shop plastic container. So I decided I would freeze a bag of carrots so I'd always have them on hand...well that was a bad idea because as the carrot thawed it released moisture into the oatmeal and it molded! So the kids and I had to sort through it to remove the worms, beetles and pupae, but as we were doing so we stumbled across teeny, tiny babies!

Well, I couldn't bear to toss them, so I sorted all of the bigger critters out, tried to pull out any moldy chunks, and mixed a bunch of rice in with the babies to make the oatmeal dry and halt the mold-growth. It seemed to work well enough, no more mold, and they kept right on growing. So that's when we expanded to a multi-container system. Now those babies are almost a half inch long, and we have a new batch that are in egg/just hatched stage that we separated out from the beetles.

We're experimenting with different things, trying to see what gets the babies bigger, faster. Fish food, dry milk powder, powdered dog food, etc. (All mixed with oats or bran.)
It's really too much fun!

 

[chrissiepotpie]

What kind of screen did you use for the top drawer?

 

[Sarahsdawn]

I found mine at Lowes. A huge roll for less than $10!

Hubs and I bought 50# of wheat bran today, and finally got them settled into it tonight. They were so happy, and went crazy! I'm hoping to see the babies grow a little faster with that, since it seems like they have been growing SO slowly! (1 month old at least, and still so small!) I picked up some dry milk powder to try, too. Concentrated calories, I guess.

 

[dstinett]

I found mine at Lowes. A huge roll for less than $10! 


Hubs and I bought 50# of wheat bran today, and finally got them settled into it tonight. They were so happy, and went crazy! I'm hoping to see the babies grow a little faster with that, since it seems like they have been growing SO slowly! (1 month old at least, and still so small!) I picked up some dry milk powder to try, too. Concentrated calories, I guess. 

I learned the hard way with dry milk. It sours if humidity gets too high. I had to discard an entire batch. The stench is horrible! I started adding chicken crumble. It made huge difference in growth.

 

[Sarahsdawn]

Yeah, I thought about the chicken crumbles. And I was Just at the feed store, too! (They have the cutest baby chicks, my kids are age 9 and 6 and were in love and begging to bring them home!)
What kind do you use? I'm a bit worried about the die off that some experienced when using chicken feed. (Even unmedicated.)
Our current setup is running on the dry side. I found a few mites on a carrot the other day, so I'm letting them be dry for a week or two......stinks to slow the growth, but better than throwing the whole thing out!