Mealworm farming

[azygous]

Wow you have clever chickens, they do metalwork Can you teach them to do some woodwork too, they could build a new coop then

(Lol funny autocorrect fail )

This is pretty funny! I was getting all kinds of grief from friends after I got a new laptop with auto-correct. I finally figured out how to disable it. So far, computers are not smarter than people.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I've ordered my worms. Not sure yet which way I'll keep them. Thinking going 3 drawers 1st.can't wait. My chickens love metalwork. This way at least it will be cheaper then buying that bag of dried worms.

Way more nutritious too!

 

[mbsidden]

Wow you have clever chickens, they do metalwork  Can you teach them to do some woodwork too, they could build a new coop then

(Lol funny autocorrect fail )

Major autocorrect fail. I should read my post first. Lol I wish my chickens were that good.
I do have a few questions. Corn cob, is that fresh or dried corn? My niece has a few boxes of baby cereal left over can I use that for the food? Dog/cat food does it need to be ground up? The cuttlebone or eggshells do they need to be ground? I want these mealworms for treats for the chickens but I also want for extra protein and calcium.

Also the potatoes or whatever you put in for water does it need to sit on something to prevent mold?

I'm excited to get this going. Hope for education for my nieces and nephews. They love the chickens and watching them feeding treats is a huge hit for them too. They don't mind feeding the dry worms interested in seeing how they'll like feeding live worms.

 

[mbsidden]

I got my mealworms Monday. So excited to get them. They are all in 1 bin right now. With a mix of cornmeal, infant cereal, and egg shells. So fat so good. Can't wait to share some with my chickens.

 

[mobius]

Isnt it great to empty the pantry of all the old flour and cornmeal and such? Knowing it is going not in the compost (which would be fine) but to an even better use? I am excited for my mealworms too...and of course the chickens are nuts for them!

I just put the thin potato slices on top of the grain in the bin and the slices get buried immediately...np...dont have to overthink despite my siggy below!

 

[theceltichorse]

So glad this thread was shared to me! I am wanting to start a meal worm farm. Not only for my new chickens, but for the baby wild birds that I raise for our local wildlife rescue. I spent so much money on them last year, it wasn't even funny. Never thought about growing them myself!

Looking forward to going through past threads and learning and start growing! Those wild babies will start coming in sooner than I want them too! My chickens will be able to bug hunt themselves as spring is just around the corner, but I'll have plenty for them this next winter!

 

[BermyBird]

Hi All, What is the mortality rate of your mealworms during the pupal stage? Is it normal for a portion of them to die during pupation and turn black or dark brown? OR, more oddly still, to turn bright fushia red?

Until recently I had not been too concerned, assuming that some some death during this stage is just normal (they are often cannibalized by adult beetles as well). However, ours is a school colony and we recently made agar plates with our Y8's where they inoculated the plates with environmental swabs. The plates were left to incubate on the same shelf as our mealworms. Two days later, about 3/4 of the plates were growing these bright red bacterial colonies that I have never seen before in swab plates. I realized that the plates had been contaminated by grain mites from the mealworm colony being attracted by the agar. I assume that the red bacteria were deposited on the plates from the mites as they grew in little trails along the routes taken by the wandering mites. And that reminded me about those occasional pupae that turn the same colour and die. After looking up 'red bacteria' it seems it could be a rather nasty pathogenic bacteria called Serratia marnescens which is associated with flesh eating infections and is very hard to eliminate!

Has anyone else ever seen bright red dead pupae in their mealworm colonies? I've read that mealworms cannot carry human pathogens but now I have my doubts and have been advised to destroy my entire colony (4 containers worth that I have been nurturing and growing for ages). I'm reluctant but cannot afford to takes chances in a school. I have not been able to find anything similar online that would help me identify why my pupae sometimes turn red and die so perhaps we have a unique problem. If anyone has heard of anything similar please let me know!

Regards, Roz Wingate

 

[twigcrafter]

I took the plunge. It's been about 2 weeks and I have lots of pupas and 2 or 3 almost beetles.

I bought 1000 from a family owned reptile shop. They weren't cheap but I feel good about my investing with them.

I just switched most of the aliens into a sterilite 3 bin system. and left the rest of the worms and such in the original bin that I had.

I cut the bottom off the 1st bin and hot glued screen so the eggs can fall into the next bin.
2 weeks in and I feel like I got this.

OK Here's the mistakes I've already made.

#1 I should have put half of the 1000, in the fridge so I could stagger the crops.

#2 I forgot to drill holes on the top for air. easy fix.

#3 I already fed a carrot to the eggs that haven't been laid yet. too excited, lol easy fix

#4 I should have started with the 3 bins to begin with. Ruin a perfectly good tub for 2 weeks worth of playing worm farmer.

it was a bit creepy at first, but I like it.

 

[SuperK]

I took the plunge. It's been about 2 weeks and I have lots of pupas and 2 or 3 almost beetles.

I bought 1000 from a family owned reptile shop. They weren't cheap but I feel good about my investing with them.

I just switched most of the aliens into a sterilite 3 bin system. and left the rest of the worms and such in the original bin that I had.

I cut the bottom off the 1st bin and hot glued screen so the eggs can fall into the next bin.
2 weeks in and I feel like I got this.

OK Here's the mistakes I've already made.

#1 I should have put half of the 1000, in the fridge so I could stagger the crops.

#2 I forgot to drill holes on the top for air. easy fix.

#3 I already fed a carrot to the eggs that haven't been laid yet. too excited, lol easy fix

#4 I should have started with the 3 bins to begin with. Ruin a perfectly good tub for 2 weeks worth of playing worm farmer.

it was a bit creepy at first, but I like it.

Twig, no different from the rest of us newbies- I did the research, got the three tiered Sterilite shelves system, wire screen etc, then set about waiting for my meal worm empire to grow.
I started with 500 adults, 1000 larvae and after too long a wait, coming up on 8 months, I still have just a few (>100) adults and about 1000 or so larvae. I try potatoes, carrots, apples, and I have even tried Styrofoam as food sources but try as I might, I can't seem to get then to breed more than their original numbers. I want to be able to feed these as a healthy portion of our chickens diet not just as a treat. I just can't get them to get busy over the self sustaining threshold.
I am going to be ordering 50,000 of these soon, but first must get an import license from my state before I can get even one mailed in. The local suppliers are few and far between and won't sell me that many. Not sure if it's because its too many for their stock, or that they think I might be wanting to sell near them, or ??? but I can get them in feed lots only. Not what I want.

Good Luck to you, keep posting on your progress and happy bugging!

 

[azygous]

You guys having trouble getting the numbers up in your colonies, at what temperature are your maintaining them? They are mighty slow at reproducing at just room temp. Need hot house temps for some real "action". (80F)