Mealworm farming

[galanie]

You can. People do different things with the bottom but I think most do as you say, use it to "grow out" - I do sometimes

 

[Lil'ChickFarm]

I read through this thread today. I love it that alot of you are doing this too. I raised and bred brearded dragons for ten years and during that time, I raised mice for them, crickets, mealworms and super worms. It was the greatest feeling to know that they were not costing me a fortune to feed and I could raise their food for myself.
Then I got some button quail for a while as I had them in the bottom of my bird aviaries. So i raised them again for these guys.
The button quail went to a friends, as they are attack artists in smaller spaces, so I quit raising the worms as I didn't need them. I loved raising them though so when I got my chicks and found out that they can eat them, I was like, YIPPEEE, I can get meal worms started again.
So I have a bunch growing up and laying eggs now.
I learned some new things about them by reading this thread, so that was great and it will help me to have better production.
So I guess I am now "IN" with the meal worm lovin', Chicken lovin' people. I LOVE IT. hehe.........
I think out of all five of my chicks that I only have one female though. She loves me too. She cuddles with me. I think I will give her a name. I notice all you name yours, but if the boys have to go to freezer camp and we eat them, I don't want them to have a name, lol.
So this weekend, my girl gets a name.
Oh and one thing. I stopped feeding mealies from my fingers as I felt that was teaching them to bite me. When I didn't have mealies, they wanted to bite my fingers. So now I toss them in and let them chase for them.
My silkies are due next week. I will see how they do in that area. I feed the white ones to the babies though, so they don't have trouble digesting them. Those are the ones that have shed.
So glad that I am good company with all you chicken/worm lovin people.

 

[galanie]

Lil'ChickFarm :

I read through this thread today. I love it that alot of you are doing this too. I raised and bred brearded dragons for ten years and during that time, I raised mice for them, crickets, mealworms and super worms. It was the greatest feeling to know that they were not costing me a fortune to feed and I could raise their food for myself.
Then I got some button quail for a while as I had them in the bottom of my bird aviaries. So i raised them again for these guys.
The button quail went to a friends, as they are attack artists in smaller spaces, so I quit raising the worms as I didn't need them. I loved raising them though so when I got my chicks and found out that they can eat them, I was like, YIPPEEE, I can get meal worms started again.
So I have a bunch growing up and laying eggs now.
I learned some new things about them by reading this thread, so that was great and it will help me to have better production.
So I guess I am now "IN" with the meal worm lovin', Chicken lovin' people. I LOVE IT. hehe.........
I think out of all five of my chicks that I only have one female though. She loves me too. She cuddles with me. I think I will give her a name. I notice all you name yours, but if the boys have to go to freezer camp and we eat them, I don't want them to have a name, lol.
So this weekend, my girl gets a name.
Oh and one thing. I stopped feeding mealies from my fingers as I felt that was teaching them to bite me. When I didn't have mealies, they wanted to bite my fingers. So now I toss them in and let them chase for them.
My silkies are due next week. I will see how they do in that area. I feed the white ones to the babies though, so they don't have trouble digesting them. Those are the ones that have shed.
So glad that I am good company with all you chicken/worm lovin people.

Welcome! Glad to have another mealie farmer aboard!

 

[Lil'ChickFarm]

Oh and I have always raised mine in wheat germ. At times I have added chicken scratch.
I get the whole large bag at the feed store for 13.00 and it lasts forever. Just a pain to find a place to store it. I break it down in plastic bags and it is easier to put away. I have dealt with moths from it though in my bird room. Those are a pain. So today after reading this, I am going to rotate freezing it.
I do that with my fifty pound bags of bird seed to keep bugs out.
Although it might be interesting to raise those bird seed bugs for my chickens, hehe.
By the way, I sprout my seed for my birds and my chickens eat some daily now too. They LOVE IT and it is a daily treat for them.
I think also it is a cooler for them right now in this heat, poor babies!!! Almost a hundred all week. I keep ice jugs in their pen. So far they are good and it is supposed to break tomorrow.

 

[galanie]

Lil'ChickFarm :

Oh and I have always raised mine in wheat germ. At times I have added chicken scratch.
I get the whole large bag at the feed store for 13.00 and it lasts forever. Just a pain to find a place to store it. I break it down in plastic bags and it is easier to put away. I have dealt with moths from it though in my bird room. Those are a pain. So today after reading this, I am going to rotate freezing it.
I do that with my fifty pound bags of bird seed to keep bugs out.
Although it might be interesting to raise those bird seed bugs for my chickens, hehe.
By the way, I sprout my seed for my birds and my chickens eat some daily now too. They LOVE IT and it is a daily treat for them.
I think also it is a cooler for them right now in this heat, poor babies!!! Almost a hundred all week. I keep ice jugs in their pen. So far they are good and it is supposed to break tomorrow.

Oh I sprout seeds too but not often enough. I got a 50 lb bag of wheat at the feed store to use for all sorts of stuff and just sprouted some of that. My cockatiels LOVE sprouted wheat! Even more than just cracked wheat or soaked wheat. They don't like the wheat "grass" part, it's the seed they love in the sprouted ones, so I just get them started spouting is all.

Good idea about feed store wheat germ! Here I got that bag of wheat seeds (really it's feed wheat but it's the whole seeds) and didn't even think of getting just the germ. That would be much cheaper than the oatmeal.​

 

[Lil'ChickFarm]

Quote:
Oh I sprout seeds too but not often enough. I got a 50 lb bag of wheat at the feed store to use for all sorts of stuff and just sprouted some of that. My cockatiels LOVE sprouted wheat! Even more than just cracked wheat or soaked wheat. They don't like the wheat "grass" part, it's the seed they love in the sprouted ones, so I just get them started spouting is all.

Good idea about feed store wheat germ! Here I got that bag of wheat seeds (really it's feed wheat but it's the whole seeds) and didn't even think of getting just the germ. That would be much cheaper than the oatmeal.

AHA! You have parrots too.............lol. Parrots, chickens, worm farms. A person after MY HEART, lol. It is science to raise worms. I love science!
I have been involved in small animal husbandry for 25 years. Oh the things my poor hubby has had to go through. lol. Hamsters, mice and rats, OH MY!!! He loved the rats though and thought the bearded dragons were cute. He loves the birds and is now peacefully creating my chicken coop. Gotta love that man for putting up with me. hehe

 

[Kassaundra]

Quote:
Oh I sprout seeds too but not often enough. I got a 50 lb bag of wheat at the feed store to use for all sorts of stuff and just sprouted some of that. My cockatiels LOVE sprouted wheat! Even more than just cracked wheat or soaked wheat. They don't like the wheat "grass" part, it's the seed they love in the sprouted ones, so I just get them started spouting is all.

Good idea about feed store wheat germ! Here I got that bag of wheat seeds (really it's feed wheat but it's the whole seeds) and didn't even think of getting just the germ. That would be much cheaper than the oatmeal.

I sprout the grains in the winter for the girls and just started fermenting them for them in this heat.

 

[crazy huhn]

Quote:
Welcome OhioPete!!!
You can buy the #50 wheat bran bags at your local feed store for about $ 15. They carry it for horses and it works perfectly fine.
However, for the last 12 month I personally have only used organic wheat bran from Purcell in Idaho, because most of my mealworm customer just want to feed their pets organically grown mealies. Yes, it is pricey, but real good quality.

 

[hannakat]

Hi Lil'ChickFarm! Welcome to the farm!

 

[mhn1957]

My meal worm farm is a 30 odd gallon tub, half full of wheat bran.
I drilled two holes in the lid and hot glued some screen for ventilation.
I got breeding stock by ordering from a place,
(I will not recommend, as I got about 1/2 what I ordered the first time. Yes, I counted them).
I fed some to the chicks, but left the pupae alone. This was in May.
Eventually, I started seeing the adults, and now, I am starting to see the tiny fellers.
I bought my wheat bran at a feed store around Circleville.
I don't know where you are in Ohio, OhioPete, but, any farm feed store could order wheat bran.
My Portsmouth store doesn't stock it in the summer, because it gets buggy.
I've saved the containers I used to purchase the worms in, and I will refrigerate or freeze them once production gets going.
The frass has not been an issue, as it is a large container. The biggest issue is keeping fruit on something for moisture from going bad.
Once my crab apples start falling, I'll just use those and change them bi-weekly.

I used chicken scratch at

The chickens don't seem to want to eat the adults. I find that odd.