Mealworm farming

[birdman55]

the pupa are white when they first change and then turn creamish color...they are harder to squish at the creamish color

i feel the same about the squishing them ...even with the beetles...so i just have taken a index card and scoop them now

 

[drewskimac]

I got my 2,000 mealworms a week ago. Found my first pupa earlier. Just moved it and 12 more I found just a little bit ago into their own container. I bought the largest size so I wouldn't have to wait too long for beetles. I was starting to worry I had done something wrong because I wasn't finding any pupa (I'm impatient when it comes to seeing progress, so I may have been looking a few times per day, knowing it would be at least a week anyway).

But success so far!

I always feel like I'm going to squish the little guys, no matter how gently I grab them.

I felt the same way at first - you'll get to the point where you don't feel so gentle because treating 16 pupa like babies would take an hour

 

[birdman55]

I felt the same way at first - you'll get to the point where you don't feel so gentle because treating 16 pupa like babies would take an hour

lol....so true....scoop and dump method now

 

[drewskimac]

lol....so true....scoop and dump method now

Haha, exactly... I used to get excited over finding one or two pupa and i would dig through the entire bin, now if i check in the morning and only have 11 pupa it's like.. What the heck?

 

[Varglet]

After the first two, I just dug my fingers in the oats next to them and rolled them on to my hand. Too many mealies nearby to scoop them out.

 

[evemfoster]

When i first started raising mealworms years back I was told that Darkling beetles have some genetic flaws such as not having the correct genes to produce useful wings up to the incomplete morph in the first photo. The flaws can be culled out of the beetle colony. So. To help keep your colony healthy I was told to pick out the "bad" ones and feed them to the birds so they wont reproduce the bad traits. I did that with the colony i had and seldom had a odd shaped beetle the last few years.

Last summer i had a sudden die off and lost the whole farm and was forced to order worms online. (turned out my now no longer a sister-in-law brought in and hid a open container of bug powder on the shelf above the worm farm).

The new worms that i received were big and healthy but when they started pupating a lot of the pupa died off and i ended up with a huge number of odd shaped beetles. I am still getting nearly half the beetles with miss-shaped wing covers too the incomplete morph beetle in the photo. I treat these worms the same as i treated the old colony so i don't believe the miss-shaped beetles are all caused by not enough moisture or at least its not the only problem.

So i am starting the culling over again with the new colony. I pick out the dead beetles, pupa and worms and miss the shaped beetles first before topping off the hens daily worm portion with live worms every day. Thank goodness the chickens don't care if they are alive or dead.

 

[birdman55]

good info will have to try the selective picking of the beetle...

 

[Varglet]

I'm going to wait for my farm to get going for a while before I toss any beetles out. If I get any beetles. I'm still expecting to wake up one morning and find them all dead. Not because I'm doing anything wrong, I just have a black thumb and automatically assume I'll fail (that way I'm not disappointed when something goes wrong and get a pleasant surprise if they go right).

 

[drewskimac]

When i first started raising mealworms years back I was told that Darkling beetles have some genetic flaws such as not having the correct genes to produce useful wings up to the incomplete morph in the first photo. The flaws can be culled out of the beetle colony. So. To help keep your colony healthy I was told to pick out the "bad" ones and feed them to the birds so they wont reproduce the bad traits. I did that with the colony i had and seldom had a odd shaped beetle the last few years.

Last summer i had a sudden die off and lost the whole farm and was forced to order worms online. (turned out my now no longer a sister-in-law brought in and hid a open container of bug powder on the shelf above the worm farm).

The new worms that i received were big and healthy but when they started pupating a lot of the pupa died off and i ended up with a huge number of odd shaped beetles. I am still getting nearly half the beetles with miss-shaped wing covers too the incomplete morph beetle in the photo. I treat these worms the same as i treated the old colony so i don't believe the miss-shaped beetles are all caused by not enough moisture or at least its not the only problem.

So i am starting the culling over again with the new colony. I pick out the dead beetles, pupa and worms and miss the shaped beetles first before topping off the hens daily worm portion with live worms every day. Thank goodness the chickens don't care if they are alive or dead.

That's an interesting theory, i can see that. I will do the same, thanks for your comment.

 

[drewskimac]

I'm going to wait for my farm to get going for a while before I toss any beetles out. If I get any beetles. I'm still expecting to wake up one morning and find them all dead. Not because I'm doing anything wrong, I just have a black thumb and automatically assume I'll fail (that way I'm not disappointed when something goes wrong and get a pleasant surprise if they go right).

They'll go right! i felt the same way but it was all okay. I was finding dozens of dead worms in my farm at first, but looking back I think that was probable due to some sort of stress of having them shipped to me, i havn't seen many dead ones lately.