Mealworm farming

[WestKnollAmy]

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I got an email from exoticnutrition after I ordered the other day and they said it was too hot to ship here. Not a problem. I don't mind waiting until next week. It is hitting 99-100 here.
I am sitting here soaking wet now because every time a black cloud appears I run outside to do my chores in the cooling rain. The lightening is dreadful but I hide inside tractors between strikes and get all 27 pens done. I can't bear it any other way. On the days it doesn't rain I am miserable.

 

[feliciamckee]

Yes, the email said they will ship on the 25th. It is a good thing though. It got up to 98 here today. I may have gotten cooked mealies. My kids...even my husband keep asking..."Did the worms come, did the worms come?"

I have been trying to talk my husband into a garden for 12 years, chickens for the last 15 years...he always had an excuse or a reason for not having either. I finally talked him into it this year and didn't expect to get both! Now, he loves the chickens and the garden as much as me. When I first mentioned the worms...he just looked at me like, "here we go again!"

It took me long enough to convince him...but it is all going so well and makes our home seem even more complete! Not that it wasn't already!

 

[feliciamckee]

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I got an email from exoticnutrition after I ordered the other day and they said it was too hot to ship here. Not a problem. I don't mind waiting until next week. It is hitting 99-100 here.
I am sitting here soaking wet now because every time a black cloud appears I run outside to do my chores in the cooling rain. The lightening is dreadful but I hide inside tractors between strikes and get all 27 pens done. I can't bear it any other way. On the days it doesn't rain I am miserable.

Wow you are really hot too! Be careful in the lightening. We don't have AC in the house, just "old fashioned box fans in the windows" (Those raised in the south know what I'm talking about). It's uncomfortable of course, but I just say it makes us tough! I dread Winter though. This is the first year having chickens and I know nothing about keeping them warm yet. I dread going out in the snow to feed them and clean etc. Come Jan, we will all be saying..."remember how hot it was!!!"

 

[sassifrassi]

Due to the recommendations of cleaning out my worm boxes because of my green fungus, I have spent the past 3 hours sifting. I have only gone through half and my back is killing me. I did see baby worms popping through but I was wondering (hoping and praying) if the eggs will sift through as well. Or are they stuck on my flakes of oatmeal? I put the live beetles back in with their oatmeal minus the fungus. Can anyone advise?
I know what I will be doing tomorrow....

 

[aggie9296]

aggie9296, that is an interesting solution to your mite invasion. Do you have any beetles yet and do they seem to be impacted at all by the oil? I also find it interesting that you think the mites might have come from the layer crumbles. Another reason to freeze prior to adding. You're right, the high temperatures make them grow fast!

The crumbles came from a feed store and it was the powdered bits at the bottom of the bag. Mites started right after.

This is my second round of beetles after getting mites and they do not seem to be bothered by it at all. They don't crawl up the wall like the mites do.

I've also head the mites will kill the worms. Not the case either if you keep the population knocked down.

 

[aggie9296]

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Gallo, thanks for the info. I will put the substrate in the freezer for a couple days and then a day or so outside to warm it up.

Aggie...I have a slightly different solution for your bug solution. You are using suntan oil to spray. It has lots of toxic chemicals in it. If you are using it for the oil to suffocate them the mites, then you don't need to have the chemicals in there. You can just use olive oil in a spray pump bottle. I used olive oil to clean my cats ears of ear mites. The vet wanted to charge me like $50 to put a chemical in his ears and then wanted me to come back for another treatment. I just looked up on the internet on how to treat the ear mites naturally and someone mentioned a drop of olive oil in the cats ears and rub it in. I did it for about a week or so and the mites were gone. DONE!!! No $50, just a fraction of a penny for the amount that I used. It would work just as well on your mites without the toxicity. I'm all about health and avoiding toxicity, so you will hear this stuff from me.

Felicia...you still might get your mealies today...I got mine today from the exoticnutrition.com. They were great! I opened the box and pulled out the bag and I could hear them all crawling around. Very healthy and active coming out of the bag. It's 94 here today and they delivered. The box was quite hot when I got it because it's been sitting in the mail truck.

The olive oil is going to be my next step. I just grabbed what I had. I spray lightly so it has not been getting down into the bedding for teh mealworms to eat.

 

[Kassaundra]

I think I'm confused by the oil, is it killing the mites or just containing them so they don't cause a mess in the house?

 

[JSLKelly]

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I did this time! I thought it would be good for them.

 

[JSLKelly]

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Gallo, There are beetles of all different colors-red, black, brown and tan with red heads. I think that the tan/red heads are the new beetles and the others are assorted ages. Haven't seen and worms yet but I haven't looked either. I down use the 3 bin method. Basically have 2 bins of assorted stages growing. Maybe the dead pupae are just expected losses?

Well, you certainly can expect some losses, but I would wonder about the cause. So, the color distribution suggests that you haven't had any microbial infections and they're not too crowded. What strikes me is that you have mortality in a class of individuals, pupae, which sounds like a problem with completing metamorphosis. My memory of these things is bad, but I seem to recall reading a paper about the early days of scientific inquiry to T. molitor, where they had problems with partial development and then they would die. They figured out that they need folic acid and other B vitamins to complete their development. Maybe you have some issues with your substrate? What are you using?

Folic Acid...hmmm....I need to check the chick start but I'm thinking that was in what I was using and I'm having the same problem. I also put in some herp vitamins which I know has folic acid. Hmm....this gets more interesting by the day.

 

[JSLKelly]

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Yes, green mold eventually killed my colony a couple of years ago. Comes from moldy food.