Mealworm farming

[Kusanar]

Well, I just changed all the bedding out on my worms for the first time and got to see just how many I have now... I started with 5 beetles fairly early in the summer, now I have about half a cup of worms, and there are still several tiny ones that went through the strainer, so I will wait a bit and try to fish them out. I haven't had any pupa yet, so I only have the eggs from that batch of 5 beetles that created all of those worms... and who knows how old the beetles were when I started... They also never got veggies, I would put a small amount of water directly into the bedding every so often and never had mold problems. I would also get paper wet and put balls of wet paper in there for them to suck water out of every now and then. Very easy way to produce a lot of bugs!

 

[Latestarter]

Just finished completely cleaning, condensing, re-filling and re-establishing 5 - 41 qt containers of mealworms down to 3 containers. I have a 4th container full of the frass (and babies/eggs that went through the straining process). I put some carrots in with them as well so they can hatch/grow and I can sift them out into the other colonies. Then all that frass is going to join the deep litter in the gardens next spring! Should have some awesome plants next year.

Took them 18 months to go through #50 of wheat bran and 4-5 cartons of oatmeal mixed in. They are now in pure wheat bran. Took probably 12 trips to the coops with bowls full of dead beetles and varying aged worms mixed in. Right now I have 4 enclosures full of happy, stuffed chickens! I'm tired! It took almost 4 hours to sift everything out! So right now I probably have 3-4 thousand worms at varying stages of development. I think I saw 2 or 3 live beetles. No idea how many eggs there might be. Couple of months from now I should be swimming in worms again.

 

[rajanomm]

I have made it through a full reproductive cycle and have tons of tiny worms. I am stumped though. I know about the fuzzy cleaner worms and have a few of those. I have also gotten some small grubby worms that I believe are moths. But the worms that truly have me stumped look like black meal worms. They are a bit bigger that my tiny hatched worms and they seem to move rather fast. They look segmented just like meal worms too. They are not sick or dying worms. I do not have pictures at the moment on my phone,but I can provide some later if necessary. Do these worms sound familiar to anyone? I've had no luck researching online for an answer. I started with a batch of full grown worms and did not see these dark worms until my eggs were hatching.

 

[Kusanar]

I have made it through a full reproductive cycle and have tons of tiny worms. I am stumped though. I know about the fuzzy cleaner worms and have a few of those. I have also gotten some small grubby worms that I believe are moths. But the worms that truly have me stumped look like black meal worms. They are a bit bigger that my tiny hatched worms and they seem to move rather fast. They look segmented just like meal worms too. They are not sick or dying worms. I do not have pictures at the moment on my phone,but I can provide some later if necessary. Do these worms sound familiar to anyone? I've had no luck researching online for an answer. I started with a batch of full grown worms and did not see these dark worms until my eggs were hatching.

I asked a similar question a while back and they said that worms kept in dirty conditions with too much frass would darken like that. All of my worms came from the same 5 beetles and none of them have pupated yet, but I have a lot of the dark ones too.

 

[KYTinpusher]

Thank you to all the participants of this thread (both those who answered the questions and those that posed them to be answered

) for all the wonderful information - I am learning a lot by reading through this. I have had a mealworm colony going for a couple of years, all in one container. I have been looking for ways to improve the production and have read about separating the different stages, but didn't understand it well until reading through this thread. I will be working on setting up a stacked bins system.

I do have a question - I have seen the posts about putting sheets of newspaper in the bins. I was wondering if I could use cut up sheets of the kraft paper feed bags for this, or if there might be something in them that is detrimental? I am thinking there might be some wax on them to help with moisture control, but I am not sure. Does anyone know? I like to recycle and I use a LOT a lot of feed that comes in the brown paper bags.

 

[lovemealworms]

Thank you to all the participants of this thread (both those who answered the questions and those that posed them to be answered  ) for all the wonderful information - I am learning a lot by reading through this. I have had a mealworm colony going for a couple of years, all in one container. I have been looking for ways to improve the production and have read about separating the different stages, but didn't understand it well until reading through this thread. I will be working on setting up a stacked bins system.

I do have a question - I have seen the posts about putting sheets of newspaper in the bins. I was wondering if I could use cut up sheets of the kraft paper feed bags for this, or if there might be something in them that is detrimental? I am thinking there might be some wax on them to help with moisture control, but I am not sure. Does anyone know? I like to recycle and I use a LOT a lot of feed that comes in the brown paper bags. 

my strategy is dont put anything in with the mealworms that you wouldnt feed to your animals. Its just easier for me. They will eat the paper and its just filler. I want mine only eating nutritous stuff. Also putting paper bags in there doesnt seem to help from my trial bins with it. They eat all the paper under the moisture veggies and then the veg is on your substrate anyways. I slice all veggies down to where they dry out or are eaten in 24 hours. This keeps any mold issues from cropping up. I produce 100,000 a week for my dragon breeding program and for sale. Sorry got carried away. Im bored.

 

[Kusanar]

Thank you to all the participants of this thread (both those who answered the questions and those that posed them to be answered  ) for all the wonderful information - I am learning a lot by reading through this. I have had a mealworm colony going for a couple of years, all in one container. I have been looking for ways to improve the production and have read about separating the different stages, but didn't understand it well until reading through this thread. I will be working on setting up a stacked bins system.

I do have a question - I have seen the posts about putting sheets of newspaper in the bins. I was wondering if I could use cut up sheets of the kraft paper feed bags for this, or if there might be something in them that is detrimental? I am thinking there might be some wax on them to help with moisture control, but I am not sure. Does anyone know? I like to recycle and I use a LOT a lot of feed that comes in the brown paper bags. 

I took small pieces of paper, about 3 inches square, but torn, so not even edges, balled them up, then flattened them back out so they were semi flat but left air spaces in between them. That gave the beetles something to climb on and hide under, they nibbled on it a little bit, but not much at all. I didn't ever put veggies in with mine at all though, I would just dampen the paper and they would run over and drink the water off of or out of the paper. I got a little bit of a mold problem once, but that was when I dumped about a tablespoon of water directly into the bedding/food and it dried back out quickly and didn't bother the worms.

 

[aart]

I do have a question - I have seen the posts about putting sheets of newspaper in the bins. I was wondering if I could use cut up sheets of the kraft paper feed bags for this, or if there might be something in them that is detrimental? I am thinking there might be some wax on them to help with moisture control, but I am not sure. Does anyone know? I like to recycle and I use a LOT a lot of feed that comes in the brown paper bags.

They often put DE in feed to deter grain pests.....might not be enough on the bags to harm them but, not good for meal worms.

 

[Lynn Manes]

We lost our entire colony a few months ago due to my own stupidity of getting way too much moisture in it. We had thousands of worms. I really kicked my own butt hard over this. I hate putting out $25.00 every 2-3 weeks on dried mealworms from TSC. Heaven knows we continue to look for ways to cut feed costs without sacrificing the health of our birds. Anyway this is why I have been AWOL on the forum. Hopefully we will begin our new colony this weekend. Merry Christmas to all.

 

[ladyearth]

how did you get too much moisture? just wanna learn. thanks