Mealworm farming

[redrooster99]

/img/smilies/yuckyuck.gif    I think a lot of us BYC folks would be classified as a little nuts by others who can't understand the joy of raising chickens.  /img/smilies/hide.gif


@ Hannakat  -- Refresh my memory on Beaver County, PA.  I'm originally from Columbia County (Bloomsburg, PA).  Went into the Air Force, and ended up after 25 years retiring down here outside the base I last worked on (Shaw AFB).  I miss PA.  My folks still live up there...so usually get there at least once a year.  /img/smilies/wink.png

Very true.

 

[BeachBumBiddies]

The best prices I've found for Mealworms is from Lazy H Bait in S FL. I used to live close to them so I would just drive over to get mine. They're on the web now to w/ great prices as far as i can tell. I used to raise them for my reptiles (& Chickens of course). If you ever have any unfriendly chickens, just bribe them w/ mealworms, they will be your BFF after that. lol

 

[bbsnooks]

 
I'm trying to figure that one out too.....haven't seen anything precise as far as harvesting.
But it takes 3-4 months for a complete life cycle, and chooks can gobble up a lot of mealworms very quickly.

I was thinking about staggering several colonies and keeping so many breeder worms in each colony and feeding the rest to the chooks as treats rather than a specific portion of their feed. Seems you'd need very large colonies to feed even a dozen chooks regularly.

That's what I do. I have three trays. One with unhatched eggs collected from the beetle drawers every few days,

Works for me

I have a similar set up. I dont know how to "collect" the eggs, so I've just been saving the frass in the bottom drawer or(because it gets too heavy) in an empty chick feed or dog food bag that they cannot climb out of. I am curious to know how you collect the eggs. I thought they would be dispersed in the frass. In fact that's how I started a large spring harvest last year. I had saved frass in dog food bag to put on garden. Totally ignoring it for several months. In March i found a thriving colony which I would have thrown away. Im interested in your method for collecting eggs.
Thanks for helping me with this older topic. Debra

 

[aart]

If I want to separate a 'new colony' I do it at the pupal stage as they are easy to handle at that point.
Am going to try and refrigerate(butter bin in door is 55F) some pupae to stagger the colony stage...worked well with larvae, should be better with pupae because thy don't need to eat every couple week's. We'll see if that works out.

 

[azygous]

There's such a thing as too much heat for these wigglers.

I've done some modification of my set-up because the small, three-drawer file box was just not large enough for my beetles. I had them in the two top drawers with screened bottoms so the eggs could filter down to the third drawer. I was getting alarming die-offs.

Since I converted two of my three larger plastic trays to a beetle condo, the amount of dead beetles has been more akin to normal attrition. The top tray has the bottom cut out and metal screening glued onto it. I cut a square out of the lid of the bottom tray and set the beetle tray onto it, so the eggs filter down into that tray, which is full of bran.

The third tray has my unhatched eggs, larva and pupa in it, and I transfer any newly hatched beetles every few days into the beetle condo. But here's the problem. I have had this tray on my cookie tin warmer and I believe it's been getting too hot. This set-up is on a shelf beside my wood stove, and maybe it's just too much heat, because the newly hatched beetles have been deformed and worms have been turning dark brown and dying inspite of there being plenty of carrots for them to get moisture from.

So I removed the electric warmer and placed a plastic container of water under it instead. The water warms up when the wood stove is going, and retains heat all night as the house cools down. I am hoping this will be a far better heating system. The red curtain, by the way, is to provide darkness since the shelf gets direct morning sunlight.

 

[Kusanar]

I FINALLY got through this whole thread.... now, I have a question, when I start, I want to have 3 groups, a main group all together, one I selectively breed for faster life cycles, and one I selectively breed for larger size. Just as an experiment to see if it can be done. Anyone think this is completely crazy?

 

[pdirt]

I FINALLY got through this whole thread.... now, I have a question, when I start, I want to have 3 groups, a main group all together, one I selectively breed for faster life cycles, and one I selectively breed for larger size. Just as an experiment to see if it can be done. Anyone think this is completely crazy?

No, I don't think you're crazy. If you have the inclination to experiment like that, I'd say go for it. If you do, we'd love to hear what you discover.

 

[Kusanar]

No, I don't think you're crazy. If you have the inclination to experiment like that, I'd say go for it. If you do, we'd love to hear what you discover.

I'm thinking for the 2 special groups, just catch a set number of Beatles (10-20) from the main bin, put them in plastic shoe boxes for a set period of time (1-2 weeks), then put them back with the others. The ones for fastest life cycle, just take the first (10-20) pupae, set them to the side, and dump anything else back in the main bin, the pupae go back in the shoe box, once everyone is emerged and breeding, dump substrate again and give them fresh bedding for the same set period of time before putting them in with the others, that way the fastest will always be breeding with the fastest and the slower ones will be weeded out. Same basic thing with size, I would assume the pupae weigh the same (roughly) as the worm they came from, so taking the (10-20) largest pupae would be the selection criteria in that box.

 

[Latestarter]

Hey Kusanar! Welcome to the thread. I don't think you're crazy, but I think you may be trying to do rocket science with leggos (so to speak)... making this a whole lot more complex than it needs to be

I see where you're trying to get to with what you want to attempt, but not sure exactly how you can do it... If you want "fastest", the temp will have the greatest affect... mid-upper 80s = fastest, as temp drops, time slows down till you get to about low 60's when things go pretty much dormant. That's why you can put them in the fridge to slow everything down to create staggered "hatches". The other issue is determining sex of the beetle... Not sure how you'd do that, so 10-20 beetles may have an inordinate amount of either male/female... in addition, they'll all be mating w/each other, so there's no way to make the fastest breed only w/the fastest...

Also, with some critters (like alligators and other reptiles, temp affects gender... not sure if that holds true w/beetles... Maybe you'll put 10-20 pupae in a box and the temp will make them all one or the other...

Just speculating/guessing/being devil's advocate

Without getting eggs that are all laid on the exact same day, and eliminating all variables except the one you are working on, I don't know how you can do this. But I wish you the best of luck and look fwd to hearing what you determine.

 

[Kusanar]

Hey Kusanar! Welcome to the thread.  I don't think you're crazy, but I think you may be trying to do rocket science with leggos (so to speak)... making this a whole lot more complex than it needs to be

I see where you're trying to get to with what you want to attempt, but not sure exactly how you can do it...  If you want "fastest", the temp will have the greatest affect... mid-upper 80s = fastest, as temp drops, time slows down till you get to about low 60's when things go pretty much dormant. That's why you can put them in the fridge to slow everything down to create staggered "hatches".  The other issue is determining sex of the beetle... Not sure how you'd do that, so 10-20 beetles may have an inordinate amount of either male/female... in addition, they'll all be mating w/each other, so there's no way to make the fastest breed only w/the fastest...

Also, with some critters (like alligators and other reptiles, temp affects gender... not sure if that holds true w/beetles...  Maybe you'll put 10-20 pupae in a box and the temp will make them all one or the other... Just speculating/guessing/being devil's advocate   Without getting eggs that are all laid on the exact same day, and eliminating all variables except the one you are working on, I don't know how you can do this.  But I wish you the best of luck and look fwd to hearing what you determine.

Yeah, I'm thinking with a small group of 10-20 then they can be in a small enough area they all have about the same chances with heat and food, so even if the heat isn't the best for fast growth, they will all have the same factors so I may have the fastest growing worms at 70 degrees rather than 80-90 but it should still be progress. Also,if a beatle lives around 3 months and lays around 300 eggs, then that is 100 eggs a month or 25 a week per female, with 10 Beatles, assuming half are female, then after a week you have (roughly) 125 potential eggs which you will then thin down to the 10 fastest eggs to pupate, so you automatically eliminate the 105 slowest from the mix each generation. Yes, the #1 and #10 could breed, but that is better than #1 and #125 or #124 and #125. I do realize that the fact that they aren't all laid on the same day will mess it up a little, but I will still most likely get the best out of the first day or 2, the week is just so I know there are SOME eggs there since I don't anticipate trying to sift and count eggs....

Sorry, I have a bit too much of an engineer in my brain..... hey, it'll be slow, but it may be entertaining....