Mealworm farming

[lolita117]

Okay I am interested in producing mealworms for my chickens. I've bought happy hen treats mealworm frenzy before and my chickens love them. I like hand feeding them these dried worms because it gets my chickens to trust and love me more. (My chickens are only around 7 months old and though I raised them from 1 day old only some actually sit still if I try to pet them) Now that I have encouraged close contact with my chickens by hand feeding them, they literally fight to get in my lap when I sit down to feed them some treats.

So here's my questions:
How much (pounds/ounces/cups?) of mealworms do you feed your chickens? I currently have a flock of 28 which I will be expanding to close to 60 this year. I know you feed as a treat in the summer and extra food source in the winter. But I would like to know how much to feed, so I would know how much to produce.

Which leads to my next question. How much should I produced for a flock of around 60 birds?

Another question. Though the freeze dried mealies don't brother me, looking at the pictures of the live ones are kinda getting to me. Is it really that bad? Is it something really easy or hard to overcome - the squeamish factor? I love my chickens and I know they would freak over something like this. Oh and earth worms don't brother me. Do they make a creepy sound when there are a bunch of them?

I'll probably have many more questions since I didn't even know you could raise these. I'm on BYC alot but the only reason I found this tread was because I google search to buy freeze dried mealies in bulk (Happy Hen Treats is a rip off, even if you want to stick to freeze dried).

 

[OkChickens]

Okay I am interested in producing mealworms for my chickens. I've bought happy hen treats mealworm frenzy before and my chickens love them. I like hand feeding them these dried worms because it gets my chickens to trust and love me more. (My chickens are only around 7 months old and though I raised them from 1 day old only some actually sit still if I try to pet them) Now that I have encouraged close contact with my chickens by hand feeding them, they literally fight to get in my lap when I sit down to feed them some treats.

So here's my questions:
How much (pounds/ounces/cups?) of mealworms do you feed your chickens? I currently have a flock of 28 which I will be expanding to close to 60 this year. I know you feed as a treat in the summer and extra food source in the winter. But I would like to know how much to feed, so I would know how much to produce.

Which leads to my next question. How much should I produced for a flock of around 60 birds?

I just recently bought 10,000 and i will have about 90-110 birds. I will let them all become beetles and reproduce probably 2 times and them i will start feeding them to my chickens.

Another question. Though the freeze dried mealies don't brother me, looking at the pictures of the live ones are kinda getting to me. Is it really that bad? Is it something really easy or hard to overcome - the squeamish factor? I love my chickens and I know they would freak over something like this. Oh and earth worms don't brother me. Do they make a creepy sound when there are a bunch of them?

They are like picking up a caterpillar or a fishing worms. Yes they make that noise.

I'll probably have many more questions since I didn't even know you could raise these. I'm on BYC alot but the only reason I found this tread was because I google search to buy freeze dried mealies in bulk (Happy Hen Treats is a rip off, even if you want to stick to freeze dried)

They are REALLY expensive about $10 for a small package.

They are really cool to have and watch. They are very easy to maintain from my 2 weeks of having them. I hope you start raising them.

I also bought 10,000 Large worms for $77.00 including shipping from nyworms.com. They shipped out 2 days after I ordered and shipped 10% more.

Nate

 

[lolita117]

Thanks for answering some of my question!
The more I read about it, the more I want to do it. I think I will start off small and let them grow and mature into a large colony themselves, since I don't want to invest too much initially (which is the whole point of doing this, right?) But do you have any suggestions of where I should get some live mealies to start this project with? I've checked out some websites that offer 2,000 mealies small and medium worms mixed for about $20.00 free shipping. Is that a decent price? I'm not to worried about this winter feeding other than a treat but whenever my flock expands to 60 this summer by next winter I figured I should have a very large colony. Also I hope someone answer my "How much to feed?" question.

 

[Kassaundra]

My colonies are doing great since being put in the large dresser w/ the lights and newspaper layers, they are getting bigger and the colonies are taking off better. I'm about ready to divide again into the 4 total bins that will fit in the dresser. I am hoping a couple of months after this divide I will finally be able to feed out some.

I have been reading the recent posts w/ how big some peoples colonies are vs how much they are feeding out it has me concerned I may not get nearly the amount I was hoping for to feed out. I am hoping for 2 cups a day from 4 bins the size of a regular clothes dresser (the total of all 4 bins)

lolita that seems to be the $64,000 question, how much to feed out, or to grow to accomodate "X" amount of chickens, I can't find any info anywhere on that. Our flock sizes are very similar, right now I have 19, but by summer will have about 60, that will be divided into 3 flocks (two laying flocks and one meat flock) I divide them out b/c I garden w/ them. I was hoping for 1 cup / flock / day but that is just a round number I picked out of the air w/o any knowledge if that would be enough as main protien or treat or calorie content or nutritional needs or anything else. I also grow dubias for the girls and right now the 19 get 50 / day between them all, I am working on expanding that colony so that I will be able to feed out 300 / day for the 60 total I will have, I want that in addition to the mealies, I also am going to try growing black soldier fly larva but have plans for that to be self feeding, that should be in addition to the normal insects they can get on their own in the garden area.

As for the squeemish, it does get better, but I just bought a box of medical gloves and pick up any of the insects w/ those on. But my mealy colony isn't to the feed out point yet so I haven't been handling them much, but it works w/ the dubias.

 

[onafixedincome]

Sure wish the smilies were easier to access!

On handling/creepiness...it's actually not bad once you get past the 'OMG it's a WORM/BUG' stage of things. The larvae feel slick, plump, and can tend to cling to you with their legs, but shake off pretty easily. Holding a handful of them is like...oh, a handful of al dente spaghetti with a touch of olive oil that just happens to wiggle.

Not icky/slimy/gross, in other words.

The pupae are kinda cool but 'fresh' (newly molted) ones can be delicate. Handle all pupae very lightly/with care and remember that they, too, wiggle! That still catches me unawares sometimes.

The beetles are definitely creepy-crawlies--they cling pretty firmly to skin, but they don't hurt or bite or fly. They WILL head under your shirt/jacket cuffs, so short sleeves while handling are a good idea. I'm getting used to them--and I moved/counted over 400 today when I split them into the 100-beetle repro colonies. So it is possible!

Noise...I could be deaf, or it could just be that I don't have paper in the boxes, but my mealie boxes are very very quiet. The only time they even get a glance from my rustle-mad cat is when I do put paper in with the beetles....and trust me, tomorrow it's coming right back out again! Too MUCH interest from cats!

Note on the repro colonies...I'm putting 100 per box (about 8" square and 2 of wheat bran substrate) and will be changing them out once a month to fresh bedding, moving the old to holding quarters while eggs (hopefully!) hatch.

Still have several hundred pupae developing, and about a thousand worms left to go/pupate/beetle-ize....IF the chickens don't talk me out of most of those, that is.

My d'Anvers hen is laying for the first time in many months--she has a crop so full of mealies and miscellaneous bugs/food that she's going to just fall over on her beak one of these days from the weight of it...!

 

[BeccaSmith]

As for who to buy from, there are a couple BYC members on here that are listed on the very first post of this thread and other places of where to buy and where not to buy....I'd start with one of our local BYC members!

Thanks for answering some of my question!
The more I read about it, the more I want to do it. I think I will start off small and let them grow and mature into a large colony themselves, since I don't want to invest too much initially (which is the whole point of doing this, right?) But do you have any suggestions of where I should get some live mealies to start this project with? I've checked out some websites that offer 2,000 mealies small and medium worms mixed for about $20.00 free shipping. Is that a decent price? I'm not to worried about this winter feeding other than a treat but whenever my flock expands to 60 this summer by next winter I figured I should have a very large colony. Also I hope someone answer my "How much to feed?" question.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I shot another video of the meal worms to put on my website.
This one is of the tiny mealies that are very hard to see but the avalanche, moving effect may help everyone to know when they have babies and can't see them very well. I haven't uploaded it yet but hope to do so today. I am not talking in it but will have a description written out beside it.
I often get emails from folks saying their colony is not growing and sometimes they may not be visible yet but beetles are laying eggs and under the right conditions the eggs are hatching and babies are growing. Knowing what to look for will help people see that they do, indeed, have thousands of babies in the substrate.

As I make more and more bins I am using less and less substrate. If I were only growing mealies for my birds I would keep it a nice 3 inches but with having to harvest them every week it has become too dusty and I have developed a small cough when I work with them and just a small bit of sifting causes my contacts to get covered up so we are working all the time on new ways to harvest.

hannakat, I noticed the meal worms are not eating beetle carcasses either but my beetle bin seems to take care of some but not all that die off.

One thing I do like about this new BYC is getting to go to my last post and read from that on the threads I participate in. I don't miss nearly as much that way! I do love to hear about all that is going on with everyone's bins.

 

[lolita117]

I'm doing it!

I just placed an order for 3,000 mealworms from Uncle Jim's worm farm. It was only 28.00 with free shipping and guaranteed live. I checked out several website and found that that one was the cheapest but they are worm farmers not pet store suppliers so they seem super reliable. I'm actually getting excited about mealworms! Who would have thought that? I think I will be able to get over the creepy factor once I get to share them with my babies!

I'm excited to see their faces when I start giving them live mealworms instead of freeze dried one. I have a question about the wheat bran. I called my local feed store and they don't have it. (Actually they seem to not have a lot of stuff that I've been wanting to get for my chickens: They've never even heard of DE, even when I tried to pull up a picture of it, they seems to always be out of my chicken food and TSC is just too far away, and now they don't even have wheat bran. I'm getting a little disappointed in my feed store

). So can you get wheat bran in other places like Walmart? I'm actually not really too familiar with it. I will probably just start out with Oats, since I'm not to worry about sifting them out and wont be for a while cause I want to get this colony rocking before I start harvesting. I can't wait to get my mealies!

 

[hannakat]

Congrats and welcome!

Uncle Jims? Let me know how that goes since it's the one place I don't recommend buying worms from.

The yuck factor quickly fades as you become more fascinated by them.

I've fed both freeze/dried, live and previously frozen mealies to my chickadees and they really don't care what form the worm is in as long as it's in their beak!!!

You can use rolled oats and they'll do just fine. I pay a crazy amount for wheat bran from Ebay.....costs me as much for 5 pounds as it would if I bought 50 pounds at Agway! eeek...but I have no room for 50 pounds!

Locally, Agway and Diamond Milling both sell 50 pound bags of wheat bran...can't find anyone to sell a smaller amount

Let us know when you're farm is up and running.

How much to feed? That really can't be answered at this point. I give my 4 girls 1-/8 to 1/4 cup a day if I can, which is equal to 150-250 worms. They free range in the summer and will find their own bugs again. The mealies are just for winter and then treats in the summer. It's really easy to train your chickens to come with mealies, and I found out that I need to do it regularly for the girls to 'remember'. hahaaaa

I'm doing it!

I just placed an order for 3,000 mealworms from Uncle Jim's worm farm. It was only 28.00 with free shipping and guaranteed live. I checked out several website and found that that one was the cheapest but they are worm farmers not pet store suppliers so they seem super reliable. I'm actually getting excited about mealworms! Who would have thought that? I think I will be able to get over the creepy factor once I get to share them with my babies!

I'm excited to see their faces when I start giving them live mealworms instead of freeze dried one. I have a question about the wheat bran. I called my local feed store and they don't have it. (Actually they seem to not have a lot of stuff that I've been wanting to get for my chickens: They've never even heard of DE, even when I tried to pull up a picture of it, they seems to always be out of my chicken food and TSC is just too far away, and now they don't even have wheat bran. I'm getting a little disappointed in my feed store

). So can you get wheat bran in other places like Walmart? I'm actually not really too familiar with it. I will probably just start out with Oats, since I'm not to worry about sifting them out and wont be for a while cause I want to get this colony rocking before I start harvesting. I can't wait to get my mealies!

 

[zzGypsy]

ok, today's mealie dinner question is... pototos: sliced or in halves?
I've been cutting them into chuncks and distributing them around the top of the bin, lightly tucked into the substrait. they do seem to dry out pretty quick, before they're eaten (although at the moment it's half pupa in there, 1/4 beetles and 1/4 worms). in some of the recent photos, the potoatos are just sliced in half and put face down.

any thoughts on how mealies would like their potatos served? slices or halves?