Mealworm farming

[Klwright1122]

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Exotic nutrition.com was reasonable... But I ordered mine from crazy huhn (a BYCer)... She provides all 3 stages in her shipment...beetles, pupa, and worms.... I haven't found a commercial supplier that does that....her shipping is the actual cost of shipment and tries to use the "if it fits-it ships boxes)...
I was very happy with my order!!
Go to page 68, post #670 I think--and u can click on her email...

 

[Kassaundra]

Yes that make sense to me and exactly what I was mulling over in my own set up. A rotation of 4 bins, 1 per month, putting pupa in the new bin each month. I had originally thought of one super bin, but reading the issues others have had I think putting all my "mealies in one basket" may not be the way to go. I wasn't planing on freezing any just feeding out. I am keeping my bins in the house so should be constant temp and consistant growth / output.

I am trying to figure how many I will need w/ this way, that will determine the number of beetles that need to go in / month w/ some overage for failed pupation.

 

[Klwright1122]

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Not hard at all. Basically you add worms to your compost. Red Wrigglers to be exact. Other worms are not as useful. You can get them at a bait shop - although I have been having a hard time lately. Check Craigslist/Kijiji - thats where I got my first batch. I grind up my organic waste (you don't have to) add it to the compost, and it turns into worm poop. Great for the garden. My master plan was to breed the worms so I would have enough of them to add straight to my garden, so they would eat the chicken poop that is attracting so many flies!
As for the bees I'm thinking one or two Top-Bar hives. They seem the easiest. I think there is a BackyardBees.com as well!

Composting is nice for any garden.

But I also wanted to drop a note about the used mealworm bedding which is the very best fertilizer you can get and just another reason I do have mealworms. Since I have started my mealworm breeding about 4 years ago, I have never used any commercial fertilizer anymore on my flower and vegetable garden. I have only used the mealworm castings and my garden has never looked any better. A lot of my local mealworm customers now are buying the castings as well for their organic gardens.

Here is an analysis of mealworm castings I found: mealworm castings contain 4 times the available nitrogen, plus other important nutrients such as phosphorus and iron -- Nitrogen-4.17% Phosphorus-2.70% Potash-1.64% Sodium-62.9mg/100gms Iron-26.5mg/100gms. PH is 7.25---

FOR CRAZY HUHN:
How do u do that? Do u just sift out the worms and dump the contents of the bin into the garden? The reason y I ask, is because I don't
have any idea what a worm cast looks like. I have wrigglers...that's obvious.... But I imagine the bin is full "dry castings" shed skin, and wheat bran, oats, etc. Am I right? As u know, I just started my bin

so I don't think I have much castings....if I do, I can't tell the difference between them and the grain in the bin.

 

[BuffyGRL]

Quote:
Exotic nutrition.com was reasonable... But I ordered mine from crazy huhn (a BYCer)... She provides all 3 stages in her shipment...beetles, pupa, and worms.... I haven't found a commercial supplier that does that....her shipping is the actual cost of shipment and tries to use the "if it fits-it ships boxes)...
I was very happy with my order!!
Go to page 68, post #670 I think--and u can click on her email...

Thank You so much

 

[LibertyChick]

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Yes, how many mealies per day per bird are people feeding?

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I did not feed too many out when I had mealies that were big enough.
I usually have 4 brooders going with 50-60 chicks in each one plus several grow out brooders but they have wire floors so I can't feed in those too easily. Well, I can but so many fall through to the floor and the older chicks then grab them. that is cheating for them since they can go outside and find bugs.
The 4 brooders I have going got a handful twice a week when I had mealies. I know I need a lot more mealies to feed this many mouths. Not to mention I would love to offer some to my breeding birds in the winter.

 

[Klwright1122]

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Yes, how many mealies per day per bird are people feeding?

Well I was just discussing this with crazy huhn a few days ago: each female beetle lays about 400 eggs. So if u put 100 beetles in a bin...assuming 50 are female and 50 are male... Each of those 50 female beetles lay approx 400 eggs that would give u approx 20,000 worms in one generation. Of course this will vary depending on the actual male/female ratio--but u get the idea.
It was suggested to me to leave the beetles in the bin for a month and then remove them..by then they will probably have laid all her eggs--she may continue to live a few more weeks--but may eat some of those eggs--so it's best to remove them after a month.

 

[Kassaundra]

Quote:
Yes, how many mealies per day per bird are people feeding?

Well I was just discussing this with crazy huhn a few days ago: each female beetle lays about 400 eggs. So if u put 100 beetles in a bin...assuming 50 are female and 50 are male... Each of those 50 female beetles lay approx 400 eggs that would give u approx 20,000 worms in one generation. Of course this will vary depending on the actual male/female ratio--but u get the idea.
It was suggested to me to leave the beetles in the bin for a month and then remove them..by then they will probably have laid all her eggs--she may continue to live a few more weeks--but may eat some of those eggs--so it's best to remove them after a month.

So the next obvious question is how many chickens will 20,000 mealies feed for how long?

 

[Klwright1122]

That part I don't know...but since chickens will eat mostly all day--mine seem to be always scratching the ground eating bugs...that if I gave them 20,000 worms today--they would eat em all in an hour.
I have 30 chickens. I fed them 5000 dead mealies the other day--and they gobbled em up in minutes, along with the bedding and oats that were in the bin. Minutes...
My purpose is to be able to supplement to their feed each day...others use em as treats.
Since I just started my bins I am thinking a new bin every 3 or 4 months...but I may do 2 bins every 3 or 4 months.

I defer to the experts on here for the answer to ur "how many" question.

 

[Kassaundra]

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Oh I knew the answer to how many the WOULD eat!!!!

I would like to know how many they should get if you are going to use as a supplement, or as a primary protien source.