Mealworm farming

[Jkaczanowski]

First off.....Best to wear a fine dust mask.
I used a small fan to blow away the shed skins.....outside, of course, when there's decent breeze works great.
Depending on your substrate, you can use a fine sifter to sift the frass out of the substrate.....use frass for fertilizer.

If your substrate had beetles, you would set it aside until the worms hatched.

I use my frass as fertilizer.

Thank you both. No chance of small worms as there haven't been beetles in the drawer since 5/13. I ordered a finer mesh strainer after your replies and it seemed to separate the frass from the unused substrate. I then threw the frass in my flower garden. I think I'm good to go. It's been 3 months since my first beetle and I'm so excited to be feeding out MY mealworms instead of purchased ones.

 

[Jensownzoo]

So what happens when the dermestid beetles run out of carcasses to eat?
Will they reproduce in the bins?

Then I have to start making that plain meat jerky for them to munch on. Actually, might ask my dad if he'd be willing to do that for me. He buys meat and hunts/fishes regularly and I don't. Would be pretty easy for him to trim a bit of the less desirable flesh off now and again and dehydrate it for me. The bugs won't care.

Pretty sure they'll reproduce, although I'd better look that up...

 

[JayJo]

I've been reading along on this thread and thanks to all the great info here, have a mealworm farm set up. I can't believe how easy it was. I put it off for a while thinking it would be a big deal, and it just isn't. Plus, the combination of unlimited mealworms and chickens is keeping my summer-break kids (and the chickens) entertained... priceless.

Question - has anyone ever used a worm bin like the Wriggly Wranch for mealworms? Right now I've just got my mealworms in a couple of old plastic containers with holes drilled into the lids. That's working fine but my friend is giving away a worm bin and they have the mesh in the bottom so the castings can drop down to the bin below. It's meant for red worms but it sounds kind of like the setup that is recommended here for mealworms. I'm wondering whether that would work.

 

[Kusanar]

I've been reading along on this thread and thanks to all the great info here, have a mealworm farm set up. I can't believe how easy it was. I put it off for a while thinking it would be a big deal, and it just isn't. Plus, the combination of unlimited mealworms and chickens is keeping my summer-break kids (and the chickens) entertained... priceless.

Question - has anyone ever used a worm bin like the Wriggly Wranch for mealworms? Right now I've just got my mealworms in a couple of old plastic containers with holes drilled into the lids. That's working fine but my friend is giving away a worm bin and they have the mesh in the bottom so the castings can drop down to the bin below. It's meant for red worms but it sounds kind of like the setup that is recommended here for mealworms. I'm wondering whether that would work.

Can you look at the mesh in the bottom and see how big it is? I used some of the plastic craft mesh (you know the kind that kids sew yarn into and make little houses and stuff) on the bottom of my beetle bin for a while and it worked well, but the small worms would fall through. If you are thinking about doing a all life stages in one bin setup I don't believe it would work for you as the eggs are about the same size as the frass and would get sifted out as well. It may work ok with a bin of large worms that are getting ready to pupate (depending on the size of the holes) or for beetles only, but not for smaller worms and eggs. Make sense?

 

[Kusanar]

I think I found a new excuse to raise mealworms! I'm getting a betta and I'm thinking the babies that are just past the "can barely see the little buggers" stage would be great treats....

 

[JayJo]

Can you look at the mesh in the bottom and see how big it is? I used some of the plastic craft mesh (you know the kind that kids sew yarn into and make little houses and stuff) on the bottom of my beetle bin for a while and it worked well, but the small worms would fall through. If you are thinking about doing a all life stages in one bin setup I don't believe it would work for you as the eggs are about the same size as the frass and would get sifted out as well. It may work ok with a bin of large worms that are getting ready to pupate (depending on the size of the holes) or for beetles only, but not for smaller worms and eggs. Make sense?

Thanks for this. Yeah, it does make sense, and was exactly what I needed to know. I'll see if I can put some window screen at the bottom of each try to filter it better

 

[JayJo]

So I learned NOT to keep the mealworms in the chicken run. My chickens managed to pop the top off one of my two mealworm containers while we were camping this weekend and ate all of the worms in there. It was about half the worms I'd just ordered, so about 5,000 of them. I only have 12 chickens right now. That's, I dunno, a LOT of mealworms per chicken. I thought sure they'd at least have belly aches but no, seems to be no problem. Good thing I ordered extra worms! I moved the mealworms elsewhere in my yard....

 

[Cebarmlds]

So I learned NOT to keep the mealworms in the chicken run. My chickens managed to pop the top off one of my two mealworm containers while we were camping this weekend and ate all of the worms in there. It was about half the worms I'd just ordered, so about 5,000 of them. I only have 12 chickens right now. That's, I dunno, a LOT of mealworms per chicken. I thought sure they'd at least have belly aches but no, seems to be no problem. Good thing I ordered extra worms! I moved the mealworms elsewhere in my yard....

Such smart birdies, sorry but I think that's cute!!

 

[Lynn Manes]

So I learned NOT to keep the mealworms in the chicken run.  My chickens managed to pop the top off one of my two mealworm containers while we were camping this weekend and ate all of the worms in there.  It was about half the worms I'd just ordered, so about 5,000 of them.  I only have 12 chickens right now.  That's, I dunno, a LOT of mealworms per chicken.  I thought sure they'd at least have belly aches but no, seems to be no problem.  Good thing I ordered extra worms!  I moved the mealworms elsewhere in my yard....

OH NO! OMW, I'm so sorry your chickens ate ALL your mealworms. But glad the chickens are no worse for wear bc they consumed sooo many. I'm sorry, but I kind of couldn't help but laugh a little when I read this post I just restarted my mealworm farm, but we start small with only about 50-75 worms.when we buy them to gish with, whatever isn't used goes into the farm box. So far, so good though

 

[JayJo]

It is pretty funny! My chickens are obviously smarter than me!!