Mealworm farming

[JSLKelly]

Hello everyone! I am soooo glad I found this thread. I've been working on a mealworm colony for about 6 months now. About a month ago I found a thread talking about the chick starter, so I picked some up, dropped it into the blender to make it a bit smaller, mixed it with powdered seaweed, wheat bran, fish flakes, dog food meal, powdered milk, rolled oats and organic oatmeal baby cereal with herp vitamins and calcium (my mealies are for my sugar gliders, hedgehog, and bearded dragons). Prior to this new mix, I had everything in the mix but the chick starter and had no problems, but in the last two weeks or so ALL of my pupa have dried up and the beetles that are coming out are deformed. I read a bit and I think the problem may be the chick starter - apparently the producers put something in it that keeps the bugs from completing their cycle. Sooo, I spent the whole day making new feed (my list is below) and picking out the larger of the worms from the old feed and moving them to the new. I have thousands of babies too small to pick up right now, so I'm holding onto my 'old' batch and will move those wormies to the new batch. I also started a new batch of worms that I've kept separate from the old chick starter mix. Anyone else here had problems with chick starter? I was careful not to get the medicated bag, but I wonder if it is my problem.... I guess I'll see when the new worms get to that stage.

Anyway, I read a suggestion a few months ago on a herp board about using dog food because it's mostly grain based. That made sense to me and since I have 2 Great Danes, we have LOTS of dog food. It's been working well but I wanted to 'beef it up' so here is my recipe: dog food, Alfalfa, Timothy Hay pellets, quinoa (didn't have enough in the cabinet to make a meal for the family so I gave it to the worms), flax seed, corn meal (just a little - we use no corn meal dog food), herp vitamins, calcium powder, powdered milk, organic multi grain and oatmeal baby cereal, a hand full of dried pasta (wheat), 1/2 loaf of toasted multi grain bread, seaweed powder, instant potato flakes, and a handful of dried cat food (my cats are extremely spoiled and will no longer eat dried food!).

I drop all this in little batches into the blender and blend it till it's a powder then mix it in about a 3:1 ratio with quick oats. I once used just quick oats, but my worms didn't grow as fast as they have been with the above mixture (1st paragraph). I was out of fish food flakes so I didn't add any of it, but I did find some hermit crab food that I just added....we lost the hermit crab so it was just sitting around. My new worms seem to really like the mix so far. We'll see. I have a hard time getting wheat germ or bran. The feed and seed stores here only have rice bran, which I will add on the next round, and it is too expensive in the stores to get the amount I need, so I like the idea of using the dog food as my base.

I feed lots of veggies, carrots, yellow squash (their favs - especially the beetles!), a bit of potato, kiwi, apple, zucchini, fresh alfalfa, corn, green beans (didn't really like). I've tried lettuce, mustard greens, collard greens and parsley -- none they liked.

I do keep my pupa and beetles separate. I had a problem with the beetles eating the pupa which was lowering my production so I started taking them out. Until the last couple of weeks, that has worked really well. I also added a ceramic heat lamp (25 watt) because the air conditioner vent blew toward the farm but I've since turned that off as the dragon's heat lamp right next door seems to be enough.

Opps, didn't mean for this post to get so long. If anyone has any ideas about the pupa problem, let me know. And thanks for all the GREAT info in this thread!

 

[Kassaundra]

I am brand new to this today, but have been doing a ton of reading on the subject. If you use chick start in needs to be the nonmedicated kind. You can also use layer feed, which has some added Ca+ since most people add Ca+ seems like it might cut a step out. This is all from reading, not personal knowledge or experience.

 

[JSLKelly]

Quote:
Hi! I was very careful to get the nonmedicated kind of chick starter. I even double checked with the store clerk. I just don't know. Maybe my problem has nothing to do with the chick starter -- I'm guessing because prior to using it I didn't have the 'dried up' problem or the incomplete metamorphosis problem and 99% of my beetles were 'normal'.

I sure hope I have better results with the new batch. I have TONS of beetles right now that are laying up a storm....but with the past two week lull of non beetle production, I'm afraid I may not keep my colony moving forward. UGGG!!!

 

[Kassaundra]

I have started mine on layer crumbles, but mine is just starting just 200 or so larva, so I'm hoping it works?

Here are some pics of the first meal in their new home.

 

[OwensMom]

JSLKelly. OH NO, I have had problems with my pupa drying up and thought that it was low humidity. I live in a semi-arid area and the bin remain uncovered. Recently(just in the last few days), I've noticed that the beetles look deformed(wing problems). I always use non-medicated showbird crumbles or turkey grower. I'm going to ask my dealer if the chemical to disrupt life cycle is in the feed!! I'll be so upset if I've been sabotaging my efforts!! I'll post when I know.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

The premature pupal deaths are probably not related to low humidity. Our humidity here is measured in single digits for much of the year and I don't have pupae dying like that. Higher humidity is would be much more likely to cause problems. For those having problems, are you feeding organic vegetables? I wonder if pesticides on the vegetables might contribute to mortality? That would also be troublesome if something was added to the grains to prevent insect contamination, like something as simple as DE. That would be devastating to developing pupae and more so at lower humidity levels and it doesn't have much of an impact on larvae. I'm not entirely sure what is causing the wing problems. I had always attributed it to my digging around in the colony at sensitive moments, i.e., while the wings are emerging and drying. I'll have to search more on that.

Kassaundra, it looks good!

 

[JSLKelly]

I am in Louisiana and although it has been dry, we are almost always at or over 60% humidity. I also spray not the 'area' well but not directly on the farms - bottled water of course! I tried to add humidity too by adding a large open dish of water but it didn't help. I've removed some pupa and am misting directly to see if that helps. A couple of years ago I did try to farm and kept the bin in the bathroom, but it was TOO humid there....had a terrible time with mold and fungus and finally gave up on the farm.

All my yellow squash, green beans, and zucchini are grown either by me or by a friend. Nothing added to them. During the winter I purchased straight from the grocery store shelf and washed well without problems. I do get organic carrots on occasion - usually in winter but that's the only organic I purchase.

PLEASE let me know if you find anything out about the chick starter. I'm going to run by the store I purchased from tomorrow and see what brand I purchased. I'll try to contact customer service and see what they say.

~Jenn

 

[crazy huhn]

Quote:
I tried finding her on the search but it said nothing matched.

Here I am..... Sorry, I have been so busy lately that I have not been on BYC too often.

Love my chickens and love to breed mealworms for my chickens for years now. The last 12 month I was able to sell from 100 mealworms to a neighborhood boy with a Bearded Dragon, to 120,000 worms to someone hosting a fishing tournament in Mexico.... and of course all in-between.....

 

[LibertyChick]

Quote:
What is Chicken TV?...Watching them interract with each other and pecking in the ground?

 

[hannakat]

Chick TV = sitting in a lawn chair with an ice tea (or beer) at your side watching the flock chase the cat, eat grass, pull your shoe strings...



Welcome JSLKelly. Love what you do with the ground up feed. I have one drawer with ground up mixture of oats, dried milk, corn meal and wheat flour and one with plain oats, and I feel the worms are growing faster in the mix. I've read about the fish food but just went with what I had on the shelf. It's a lot easier to watch the worms when the substrate is ground up too. How do the beetles make out in it though?