Mealworm farming

[gale65]

When you give sliced sweet potatoes, what do you do with the rest of the potato? I am guessing it doesn't keep? I cut a few slices off one today and nuked the rest for the chickens but if it will keep somehow, I'd rather save it for the worms.

 

[Kassaundra]

As I was going through my two better bins today, getting a few harvested for shipment and looking over the growing numbers, I noticed a few interesting things. (Y'all love it when I share this stuff, eh?)

Meal worms put on their backs will flare their sides out and arch to turn themselves over. Real cool the way they flare their sides out! I watched that time and again. Probably had not noticed it before because I do not wear my reading glasses but my eyes are to the point that I can't see squat in the mealie bins if I don't.

Also, I have so many growing up that I now have several thousand in the bottom of a Guinea Pig cage that is plastic and has tall sides. It fits on the arms of the chair in my living room very well so I like it. It is much bigger than my plastic bins and at this time I am not buying more. So anyhow, I laid a big plastic lid in there on the substrate and would use my shaker to get the little ones out onto it and the big ones would be left for me to collect up. When I would lift the big plastic lid off the substrate there would be lots and lots of mealies crawling between the lid and substrate. It happened time and again and I am wondering if the mealies prancing around on the lid or the gentle bumping of them falling onto the thin layer of substrate was a type of calling to the others? The substrate in that huge bin is about 4" deep since I have so many growing up in there. Just odd that in only a few minutes the mealies would all be up there and I could set it right back down after scooping the mess of worms up in the shaker and within a few minutes they would be back again.

So there are my weekly observations of meal worm farming. I always love to read everyone's adventures and share my own.

As I was reading your post I had visions of "Dune" flahsing before my eyes.

 

[Kassaundra]

When you give sliced sweet potatoes, what do you do with the rest of the potato? I am guessing it doesn't keep? I cut a few slices off one today and nuked the rest for the chickens but if it will keep somehow, I'd rather save it for the worms.

I have enough worms and two bins so I put the whole potato in 1/2 in each bin, but if I didn't I would wrap it in saran wrap and put it in the fridge.

 

[ChickenWisperer]

Hey guys. Just thought I'd chime in on my earlier question...

I left a few giant mealies in the dish for the new gecko, Tyko. He's been having eating problems, so I ignored the worms until I got some crickets for him last night.

Imagine my surprise when I go in last night and one of those giant mealies was a pupa!

 

[OkChickens]

I checked my 3 Meal worm bins this afternoon to replace the Veggies with new ones and I saw A lot of Pupae! I had at least 30-40 in each bin! There is a lot of shedding happining as well! How long does it take for the Pupae to become Beetles? Is it like 5-10 days? Its pretty cool seeing the changes that take place!

Nate

 

[Smiles-N-Sunshine]

Okay, y'all have inspired me to "Go big, or go home". Yes, Amy, your site especially LOL.

Soooooo, I consolidated all my 300+ beetles from 2011 into one drawer, started another for 2012 beetles, and I'm letting all the older mealies from October pupate, to expand the herd.

A question for those who use wheat bran: do you find it draws moths? I stopped using wheat bran for that reason. Or, more correctly, DW strongly encouraged me to stop using wheat bran for that reason. I don't know if the moths were in the bran when I got it, or arrived later, but arrive they did. I know you can put bran in the freezer to kill them, but a 50# bag makes this a challenge. Anyway, mine are doing well on chicken feed and corn meal.

I'm curious how long my beetles are living. I suspect it is much longer than the 3-4 months I've read. I'm also curious if beetles lay until they die, or do they hit menopause sometime and stop reproducing? Do you think I could get a government grant for my valuable research?

Also: do y'all know if there's a correlation between size and gender? I have a large range of different sized beetles, and haven't figured out why. Some just seem to pupate earlier, and end up as smaller beetles.

Party on, worm wranglers!!! Yee-haw!!!

Bryan

 

[Emily1220]

I'M GETTING PUPAE!!!!!! I am so excited. Found 6 today from 2 bins that have a total of about 600 wormies. The one that was in the container when I bought them has turned into a beetle now but is seriously deformed and cant even stay on his feet. He lays on his back wiggling his legs for like 3 days now. My house stays around 70 degrees. My DH really groaned when I mentioned putting the chickie brooder lamp on the mealies!!!

 

[WestKnollAmy]

Hey guys. Just thought I'd chime in on my earlier question...

I left a few giant mealies in the dish for the new gecko, Tyko. He's been having eating problems, so I ignored the worms until I got some crickets for him last night.

Imagine my surprise when I go in last night and one of those giant mealies was a pupa!

LOL
Yup, that is why I hate to ship out the big worms. They have a tendency to turn quickly and just harvesting and putting them in my "holding" container finds me having to pick out a hundred pupae after a week if I am not careful.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

So exciting to hear all the great news.
I am glad my web page has been inspirational and I am soon to add another video when DH gets his rear in gear.
We continue to add bins all the time and keep working to make things easier for harvesting....although.....the chickens really say they can help us if we would just let them.

 

[Emily1220]

Amy you are so funny!!!! I just had to go see if my worms actually roll over the way yours do!!! Mine just wiggle like crazy and flip over. They did seem to excited about doing any tricks tonight!!