Mealworm farming

[PAchickensgalor]

My guys love apples. They eat it fast enough that it doesn't mold. All that is left is a dry skin when they are done. I put in halves to make it easy. I put it on a plastic lid or on the paper or egg crate.

Thanks. I am new to the mealworm thing. I just got my worms a few days ago. I decided to try apple and pear at the same time. I put half of each in the bin on plastic lids. After two days, there are 3 times as many on the pear as are on the apple. They seem to like both, but they are absolutely devouring the pear. From the posts I've read it seems like the mealworms are a little like people: some like chocolate (pear), others prefer ice cream (apple). I probably will mostly use carrots because they sound the most trouble free, but I started them out with fruit, because I had a couple pieces I needed to get rid of.

 

[Mavrk]

Potatoes are good too. Don't worry if they get brown, that is not moldy. If they don't finish it fast enough that it turns green, then you have to remove the potato. They love them. I gave mine a treat the other day of the watermelon rind after I ate the slice. They seemed to like that one a lot too. I have seen tomatoes given too. I would have thought celery would be more difficult for them to eat, but I see plenty of posts of people giving those as well. I have heard of people crumbling up dried egg shells really small and feeding it to the mealworms to "gut load" the worms with calcium before feeding to the chickens. The idea is that the food you give just before you feed them will still be in the system and add to the nutrition.

 

[kwol]

I have fed mine outer cabbage leaves, slices of white potato, slices of sweet potato, carrot, and celery. The beetles seem to like the cut surfaces best, so I tear the cabbage leaves and cut the bottom of the whole celery bunch off for them.
I have fed the chickens all stage of the dead bugs and they ate them all. I even put the shed skins in with some kitchen treat sfor the chix and they ate that too.

 

[yyz0yyz0]

I would have thought celery would be more difficult for them to eat, but I see plenty of posts of people giving those as well.

Celery was the only thing I had available when my worms arrived last week. I put in a layer of oats and a couple pieces of Celery, within days the celery was completely gone. It appears that my new worms do like the celery and have no problems consuming it.

 

[AngieO]

i read they like green peppers too. I am going to try that. Yesterday when I received my mealworms, I put a carrot and apple slices in. They love the apple slices but aren't too keen on the carrot. We had corn on the cob for dinner and I told everyone to keep their cobs so I will be trying those too.

 

[Hypertay]

I've also put a piece of banana skin on the top and the beetles ran right for it. It has to be removed after a day or so because it will draw fruit flies and mold. But the bugs really like the soft inside of a banana skin and it has a lot of moisture.

I had put in a styrofoam egg carton for the adults to hide under but they started eating it! That was when I changed to newspaper, it's ok to consume. I sifted all the rest of my chick grower feed and have the dust set aside for the worm farms.

I already have second generation adults in my aquarium farm, it was started with about 80 pet store mealworms in November and now has over 3000 worms, some of which are pupating and now some beetles are already chasing each other around. I've fed some of those worms to my chickens, my mom-in-law's oscar fish, and the wild birds outside and the aquarium is still roiling with activity. And some of the 1000 worms from Amy's West Knoll Farms have already had their second generation worms! They are tiny but I can see the bran moving and the carrots are being consumed in the first 2 bins where I removed the adults after 2 weeks. They are only taking 3 weeks to hatch since I have a light on the bins to keep them really warm.

This is the easiest thing I've ever grown. Now I'm experimenting after reading the growing fodder thread! I wish there was a bulk food store closer to me.

 

[LaBella]

At this count, I seem to have
9 beetles, all black, but for one chestnut
19 very active mealies, one of which is super tiny
10 mealies that look like they're about to pupate
31 pupae (two that just pupated)

That means 69 total.. I haven't seen any dead, or any munched, so if I got a 100 count, they gypped me badly, lol. But if I got the 50 count, then I did quite good. I just haven't a clue what count I got, lolol.

ETA:Make that 20 very active mealies, I just found an escapee, for a total of 70.

 

[PAchickensgalor]

It appears that I just have to learn how much a certain amount of worms will eat. I put half an apple and half a pear in 3 days ago for 2000 worms and the apple is moldy.......which is to be expected, so I guess I will cut the food amount in half so they can eat most of it before it molds.

 

[Mavrk]

It appears that I just have to learn how much a certain amount of worms will eat. I put half an apple and half a pear in 3 days ago for 2000 worms and the apple is moldy.......which is to be expected, so I guess I will cut the food amount in half so they can eat most of it before it molds.

Second generation will go through the apple quickly.

 

[Mavrk]

The worms in my second bin that I created at the same time that I increased the heat are ready to be fed out. The original bin has less of that size even though they are older. So the second container took a month while the other one is 4 months old. Subtract a month for the beetles to emerge and start doing their thing and it is really 3 months. But the last month has been in the heat too. So my recommendation stands... increase the heat if you want this process to go a lot faster.