Mealworm farming

[Latestarter]

Sounds like a voice of experience...

 

[aart]

... Then you will notice that the "dust" is moving.

No kidding....since bringing home some chicken feed with grain mites, I spend quite a bit of time each day staring at dust and waiting for it to move...haha!
Once you know what to look for, it's pretty easy to spot it.

 

[Kusanar]

I gave my worms their first carrot this morning, I'll see how they do with that. This is the 2nd generation and I've never given them solid food before, just sprayed them with water every now and then.

 

[Jkaczanowski]

Does anyone mind telling me what they do with their used substrate? I am just about to start harvesting mealworms from my first drawer and I can see a mix of shed skins, frass and substrate. I don't want to waste the substrate but am not sure about feeding it to the chickens.

Thanks!

 

[aart]

Does anyone mind telling me what they do with their used substrate? I am just about to start harvesting mealworms from my first drawer and I can see a mix of shed skins, frass and substrate. I don't want to waste the substrate but am not sure about feeding it to the chickens.

Thanks!

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.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

No kidding....since bringing home some chicken feed with grain mites, I spend quite a bit of time each day staring at dust and waiting for it to move...haha!
Once you know what to look for, it's pretty easy to spot it.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Does anyone mind telling me what they do with their used substrate? I am just about to start harvesting mealworms from my first drawer and I can see a mix of shed skins, frass and substrate. I don't want to waste the substrate but am not sure about feeding it to the chickens.

Thanks!

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

I use my frass as fertilizer.

 

[mcliff3]

We started our worm farm a few weeks ago also and have several bettles now as well.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

@Jensownzoo I am glad you reported back on dermistides. I have been debating to get them or not. I guess to some degree I wonder do I have to worry about causing an invasive species infestation in my area. With the beettles and meal worms as well? Like what happens if a few get away from the crazed chickens ... sometimes they are so focused on what I have they don't even care what I poured out in front of them they just keep chasing me around. So I have to go back to where I started to get the little buggers to look at the ground.

 

[Kusanar]

@Jensownzoo I am glad you reported back on dermistides. I have been debating to get them or not. I guess to some degree I wonder do I have to worry about causing an invasive species infestation in my area. With the beettles and meal worms as well? Like what happens if a few get away from the crazed chickens ... sometimes they are so focused on what I have they don't even care what I poured out in front of them they just keep chasing me around. So I have to go back to where I started to get the little buggers to look at the ground.

I would bet, if you have chickens and feed, that you have feral mealworms running around, I have them in my horse barn from the feed that I have around. Either that or there is a wild munch running around that just showed up because of the feed.... that's where I got mine, caught some wild beetles and put them in a tub with horse feed.