Mealworm farming

[Cluckies]

Finally seeing some worms, after only seeing beetles for months now! yeah!

 

[Kusanar]

You can keep them in their worm farm inside the house.  Room temperatures will be fine.

I have had it so cold (power outage) that the beetles died on the surface of the bedding but the worms inside the bedding lived.  I think that is how they make it through the winter.

I have read that if you have too many mealworms and you want to slow down their life cycle (some people who feed them to pet reptiles want smaller worms) you can put them in the fridge up to 2 weeks.  That is in the 40's F.  The worms will survive anything warmer than that but their movement and growth proceeds at a snails pace if its below 60F.  In the mid 60's growth is so slow that i think it takes all winter to get the amount of growth you would see in one month in the summer. 

Years ago in the late fall one of my nephews put his brand new shoebox worm farm on the top shelf in the garage, then promptly forgot all about it.  The next spring he spotted the shoebox and expecting to find dead bugs checked out the farm.  They were still alive having survived though a fairly mild winter. However the worms and beetles were all quite small.  They had lived all winter long without any attention of any kind.  After he added carrots they responded quite well and started growing normally. 

So no need to toss them out.  If they make it through the winter in their worm farm you will have a nice head start for next year.

Though if you have to put them on a top shelf i would recommend the top shelf in your closet.  It would be a lot warmer up there.

Yeah, well, i cant take them in the house, they are in an unheated barn right now and would freeze solid if they were left where they are all winter. The fridge wouldnt be much better...

 

[drewskimac]

A mini zoomed heat pad does the trick for me.

 

[Leroy2010]

Superworms are easier to breed and seperate than mealworms. Bigger and also easier to manipulate the life stages. Separate worms into individual tackle box holes. Wait a week or two til they pupate. Put pupae in a separate small container(Tupperware). Wait a week or two til they turn to a beetle. Put them in a drawer with something to hide under(egg carton) and about half and inch of wheat bran and a moisture/food source(Carrots, potatoes, or apples). Every day check the moisture source for mold or drying and change if necessary. Every two weeks put beetle wheat bran into another drawer and put moisture source in the drawer. In about two weeks you will see little worms. Draw is ready to feed after a month. Beetles live for two months, so fill your tackle box every month starting the second week after your beetles start emerging from pupae. Supers won't pupate unless seperated. Have and questions just pm

 

[Arielle]

Quote: Fore give me for barging in here. . . I got as far as planning to get meal worms, prepping the set up and even contacting a seller . . and then chickened out. Yup I need to put on my big girl panties too and just go for it. Thanks for the GIbbls slap!! lol Contacting seller again.

 

[Bugseye]

Chickened out," ha ha ha.

 

[Sidhe13]

My beetles are dying off...there are only a few dozen left, but they have done their job well....THOUSANDS of little wormies!! Craaazy amounts!!
Might look at expanding into the Superworms too...

 

[evemfoster]

Superworms are more labor intensive and need more attention than i want to put in to keep the colony going.

I decided to not raise them for those reasons. Well, Ok i also find the superworms softer bodies quite gross. I got some with a order of mealworms one time and they were so big the chickens couldn't swallow them whole. The chickens ended up fighting over them, pulling them apart. Took no time at all to decide i didn't want to see that everyday.

 

[Leroy2010]

It only takes me about 5 mins a day and 10 mins every 2 weeks. After you get the system down its a breeze. If you only put enough bran for the worms to consume in the month and some it takes for the worms to grow. It takes out the sifting, so its only a 4 step process. Unlike mealworms where you have to wait for them to pupate. Although I support supers and think they are totally awesome. They aren't always for everyone.
Good point Eve lol
Crawlies don't bother me though. breed dubias, supers, mealies and BSF. My favs are supers and dubias though.

 

[Lynn Manes]

Ok. Here's a bit of a laugh on me. When I check my mealworm farm I always see lots of pupa and beetles but wonder where all my mealworms have gone. Finally the other day I asked Michael, my fiance, why don't we have tons of mealworms by now as we've been at this for a few months now? So he checked out their farm and pointed out all these teeny tiny worms wriggling happily away in there that I didn't even see. Well, of course they are! What was I thinking! They have to be babies first and grow up. I just hope we get tons of grownups before these go through their cycle.