Mealworm farming

[CluckyJay]

For really quick garlic spread, use the wild-type. It spreads like fire and keeps coming back for ages.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Quote:
I use it in the water containers about twice a week with apple cider vinegar. The chickens drink it just fine and I have never tasted a garlic egg. But then, I eat so fast and furiously I probably don't taste much. At our house the saying goes "There are 2 kinds of people....the quick and the hungry!"

 

[Smarcebird]

Amy - do you just put a clove in the waterer?

 

[ipana]

For really quick garlic spread, use the wild-type. It spreads like fire and keeps coming back for ages.

Didn't know there was "wild" garlic. Is that, perhaps, what some people call wild onion? It has the tops that look like chives or young onion tops and when you cut the grass, it smells like onion? If so, there's plenty here, too, so I'd like to give it a try. I actually wasn't worried about eggs tasting like garlic. In fact, I hadn't thought that far ahead.

Garlic eggs may be OK. Who knows? Anyway, if the chicken immune is boosted, we'd want that, so thanks for the info. This another one of those things where I scratch my head and say, "Who knew?" We learn so much here by the info people are willing to share. Thanks.​

 

[ipana]

One thing to consider that I learned from Peter Brown, the "chicken guy." He said to be careful with vinegar in the water for all the birds. It can change the pH of their system which could be harmful. Just throwin' that out there. It made sense to me. I've read of doing that if there is sour crop but not for a continual part of their diet.

 

[CluckyJay]

There is a wild garlic and a wild onion.

We mostly have the garlic but do have some onions as well. Just make sure it smells like garlic or onion. If it lacks the smell, it could be another type of poisonous lily.

 

[CluckyJay]

I put several heaping tablespoons of crushed garlic in my five-gallon chicken waterer. I didn't notice a garlic taste to their eggs. But, I DO like garlic so maybe I just didn't notice the taste.

 

[dlee]

Quote:
Hi Kassaundra, My box is in a carport type tent outside. I have lots of insulation around the box. A few weeks ago it got down to 34 degrees & the worms were fine. The box sits on legs about waist high. I will feed lots of worms along with milo & veggies from our garden & greenhouse plus kitchen scraps. Right now I can only feed a small amount of worms a day but planning to increase as the worms reproduce more. The layer feed is getting way too expensive here as we are retired & living on very small income. We are trying very hard to become as selfsupporting as we can. I have the mules saddle broke & trying to train them to pull the plow & wagon. Wish me luck, as the only animals ever I've had were dogs many years ago.

We welcome all the suggestion we can get. Been following this thread from day one, so learned lots already.

Being on legs is good, that way if/when the ants find it you can put legs in a dish w/ oil or water to keep them out of the bin, I would do it profilactically if it were me especially w/ the bin outside. Do you have a "plan b" if you lose power in the winter? How much kitchen / garden scraps will you have in the winter?

I already have the legs in buckets of water, The only problem I had was mice. I had the lid covered with nylon screen & the mice chewed through it. I changed to aluminum screen & solved that problem.
I have a generator hooked up to my power pole, just push the start button & bingo, power.
I am also working on a system that makes an actual gas, not a liquid type but a vapor kind. It is called a gasifier. Look up "gasifier" on the internet. It was used throughout Europe during WWII, as gasoline was impossible to get. It will be slowly burning pine wood chips & extracting the gas from the chips & feeding it into the generator to charge batteries to supply power to our house.
We do grow winter greens in the greenhouse in the winter. I have an airtight woodstove in it & it is covered with 2 translucent covers. It stays pretty warm when it get cold outside. Also we dehydrate lots & lots of greens, etc. to feed in the winter.
BTW, we moved from Houston to East Tx. after I retired & with what money I had left after I lost most of my I.R.A.s & 401Ks in the 2008 market crash we bought 8 acres. That makes it much easier to be self sufficient.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Quote:
I mince the garlic and put about 4 tablespoons in a gallon of apple cider vinegar. I shake well before I add to chicken water containers, usually about a tablespoon or a bit more to a gallon of water. I try to fill a tablespoon but it runs over so I am sure it is more.

 

[Gypsi]

Quote:
Well you are in good company, except I never had any IRA's courtesy of well, let's just call it life.
Is there a self-sufficiency thread on here anywhere? I have 1/3 of an acre. I keep ponds, have one wimpy little 15 watt solar panel, plus regulators and a couple of batteries, want to rig cables to connect more than one battery, want off-grid backup power.

I am very interested in what you are doing with the gasifier, and I bet I'm not the only one, especially with the state of the Texas power grid in winter.