Mealworm farming

[azygous]

They aren't called "meal worms" for nothing. Just about any cereal grain will do. I see no reason not to use the farina unless someone reading this has found it to be unsuitable. Common sense indicates it should serve the purpose of substrate. Give it a try and let us know how the worms do. If they grow and pupate, you will know it's working. Don't forget to include sliced veggies for a water source, and try to keep it out of the farina so it won't gum it up, since there's going to be considerable gluten in it.

 

[misfitmorgan]

They aren't called "meal worms" for nothing. Just about any cereal grain will do. I see no reason not to use the farina unless someone reading this has found it to be unsuitable. Common sense indicates it should serve the purpose of substrate. Give it a try and let us know how the worms do. If they grow and pupate, you will know it's working. Don't forget to include sliced veggies for a water source, and try to keep it out of the farina so it won't gum it up, since there's going to be considerable gluten in it.

i couldn't think of a reason why it wouldnt work either aside from the whole getting wet thing but i figure if i put the food on paper or an old tuperware lid of something it would be fine. I'm ordering my worms tomorrow they should ship out monday.....5,000 is i believe what i am ordering, we are wanting to use the mealworms as more of part of their diet rather then treats so start big lol. Thank you

 

[Latestarter]

Hey Misfit: The meal/diet vs treats aspect has come up before in this thread... Been a while... but the gist of it goes something like this:

In order to serve your chickens 1/2 cup (to maybe a cup) of mealworms per day TOTAL, you would need to have approximately 125-150 THOUSAND mealworms

in all various stages, and even then, if the temp dropped for a while, or maybe they didn't get enough moisture for a bit, you would end up using more than they could replace & would have diminishing returns... The full cycle of life for them; egg - adult worm - pupa - beetle - laying eggs is 3-6 months... maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less...

 

[latenighter]

Just for fun.... what are your mealworm/ beatles favorite moisture source. My mealies seem to prefer carrots and beatles are flocking to potatoes

 

[misfitmorgan]

Hey Misfit: The meal/diet vs treats aspect has come up before in this thread... Been a while... but the gist of it goes something like this:

In order to serve your chickens 1/2 cup (to maybe a cup) of mealworms per day TOTAL, you would need to have approximately 125-150 THOUSAND mealworms

in all various stages, and even then, if the temp dropped for a while, or maybe they didn't get enough moisture for a bit, you would end up using more than they could replace & would have diminishing returns... The full cycle of life for them; egg - adult worm - pupa - beetle - laying eggs is 3-6 months... maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less...

Makes sense i was however not intending to give them all 1/2-1Cup of worms a day lol. I am not insane...yet. I am ordering 5,000 Worms today and then probly another 5,000 next week to start my colony....so 10k large worms should be a fairly good start. They also would not be fed worms for more then treats in the spring/summer/fall when they can get their own bugs. So basically extra winter protein like others have been doing on the thread...or were doing, not sure since i skipped ahead. We also have an old fridge we were talking about making into another hatcher/brooder for the worms....so they can live at optimum temps. i still dont have any dilusions of it being a quick process though i did still think it was like 2 months haha. Thanks so much for the info!!

 

[Latestarter]

Makes sense i was however not intending to give them all 1/2-1Cup of worms a day lol...

Just to clarify... I was not saying 1/2 to 1 cup per bird... I was saying 1/2 to 1 cup TOTAL, split between ALL your birds, each day... I'm sure that you'll work it all out over time and they'll go as far as they do

No matter, you're birds will be better off for them, and will love you all the more

 

[azygous]

And then there's the outrageously entertaining game I love to play with baby chicks (grit necessary), called "chick pandemonium".

Introduce a meal worm into the brooder and watch the ACTION!

 

[ladyearth]

prob have over 100 beetles now from all the 500 mealworms I bought.. I put them in a seperate drawer with several small squares of white fabric that thw worms are in oatbran substrate.
I read lots and watched lots of videos... still wondering what else can do....will the beetles eat their own eggs... why seerat the pupa?
thanks

 

[The Hawk]

Hey Misfit: The meal/diet vs treats aspect has come up before in this thread... Been a while... but the gist of it goes something like this:

In order to serve your chickens 1/2 cup (to maybe a cup) of mealworms per day TOTAL, you would need to have approximately 125-150 THOUSAND mealworms

in all various stages, and even then, if the temp dropped for a while, or maybe they didn't get enough moisture for a bit, you would end up using more than they could replace & would have diminishing returns... The full cycle of life for them; egg - adult worm - pupa - beetle - laying eggs is 3-6 months... maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less...

Hello all. I have been reading this awesome thread for some time now and a few have said it takes around 1,000 worms to make a cup. So just wondering where I went wrong on my math.
Lets say 100,000 beetles and half are layers. So they lay between 300 and 500 eggs each. Lets say 300 times 50,000 beetles comes to 15,000,000 eggs minus 100,000 to keep for new batch.
So that gives you 14,900,000 over say 3 months. Round things off a bit and you have 166,000 per day or 16 cups per day. So even if your loses are 50% you still have 8 cups per day.
?????? What am I doing wrong.

 

[Latestarter]

Mornin' Hawk and

and the worm thread

Your math seems downright perfect to me (in a perfect & linear world), but first you have to build up to the point that you have 100,000 beetles (that's a LOT of beetles!) all alive and laying at the same time. Then you have to factor in that all those eggs are going to hatch at the same time, and the worms will all be full grown at the same time. etc. OK, I know... you're thinking even if that DOESN'T happen in a perfect linear fashion, it's still a LOT of worms

Right now I have 5 tubs of mixed age worms going and think I may have 20-30 thousand at all different ages. I've noticed that for some reason about 10-15% of my beetles that hatch are deformed in some fashion so I don't think they get to pass on their genes. I also guess I lose 10-15% of the pupa for a variety of reasons. I am raising them in other than perfect conditions, I would guess the actual egg output is somewhat less than the ultimate and averages somewhere between 100-250 over a 2-4 month period. Not all the eggs hatch, and those that do don't all mature at the same time, so I end up having lots of "worms", all at different sizes/stages/ages.

I don't even TRY to separate out eggs (they are microscopic), worms, pupa or beetles. I simply don't have the time or inclination to spend (waste) that amount of time! They started out as 5000 worms roughly split between 2 containers and as I've cleaned out frass and replenished substrate, I would further separate out a bunch to start new colonies. That's how I ended up with 5 (the odd one; #5 happened because of worms developing from eggs in the frass).

When I have mostly larva (worms), I can feed out about 2 cups, 2-3 times a week and I do NOT take the time to pull out only adult/mature worms... I just scoop a bunch of whatever comes up... worms/beetles/pupa/eggs... it all goes to the 30+ birds as a snack and they devour everything in very short order! Doing that obviously puts a dent in future generations, and I can only maintain that feeding level for a few weeks before noticing a major depletion of "breeding stock" at which time I stop and let them re-group for a while.

I would say just feed out what you feel you can and still maintain colony viability... long as you leave plenty of breeding stock and keep them fed and hydrated, they'll keep doing what they do and you can keep feeding them out

edit to add: I don't plan on expanding any more than what I presently have as I don't need to generate any more "work/chores/time consumption/space/smell/dust" issues. I'm busy enough as it is, and they are used simply as a treat source for the birds, NOT a main meal/food/protein source.