Mealworm farming

[WestKnollAmy]

ROTFL
That is too funny!!
I worry about my cats getting into mine but so far the dog has not wanted to eat any of my work!

 

[patricia]

Wow, this is interesting. I am going to pick up some containers this week and give it a try!

 

[dmclalin]

I too am interested in raising meal worms. I live in Michigan and I keep my house at 63° in the winter. The humidity is almost non-existent. Can Meal worms thrive in this climate? Or, what else could I do to help them along. I simply cannot afford high electric and gas bills. I could try one of the brooder lamps, but they run about $30/mo. to operate.
Maybe if I build some sort of climate control closet in front of one the the heater vents?

 

[WestKnollAmy]

You can go ahead and get your worms and put them in a plastic tub with some oats or bran and they will do fine in your house. If you want them warmer you can put them in the bathroom when you run the shower or run a bath. I have several containers in one of my bathroom closets since the door stays partially open to allow the cats to go in and use their litter box.
Or you can put them under the bed where the air may be less chilled especially if you have a skirt around it.
Hannakat has a tub in her oven with just the oven light left on and removes them for using the oven and says that works well for her.
Just putting them near your heat source in the house like a register and keeping some fresh food in there for them will be fine but they just grow more slowly. No worries on how fast they will grow. Once spring gets here and your house gets warmer they will take off!

 

[zzGypsy]

I have mine in a plastic drawer with a reptile cage heater mat under it - my house is 60-62, and it took about a week for the heater to warm the oatmeal and wheat bran they live in, but it stays between 70 and 74 pretty consistently. some folks are using a reptile rope under their containers (another kind of terrarium heater). you do have to be careful, my reptile mat says use on glass terrariums, don't use on plastic, but it seems to be working fine anyway (your results may vary)... the bottom of the tray is holding pretty steady at 80 degrees, so I don't think there's any danger of it melting the plastic, but it might depend on what heater you got.

 

[Emily1220]

I found 4 more beetles today and made extra sure the dog wasnt around while I watched them. The last one I watched come out of her little pupa shell!! That was really neat! I need to get my camera over here near the bins. I also bought 500 more worms from petco today and for some reason I poured them out onto a paper towel before putting them into my bins. Really glad I did that because I found about 100 dead ones!! I took the dead ones back to the store tonight and they gave me another 500 live ones, to replace them with for my trouble!!!! NICE!!! And I had a $2.00 off coupon for the first batch and then when she rang the exchange receipt, they gave me another $2.00 off coupon. NICE again!!

Back to the beetles......I dont mind touching the worms. They are pretty neat. And I love to look at the pupa but I've been rather squimish thinking about the beetles. So, while they are brand new and still light tan colored I picked one up and let it crawl over my hand. It was kind of cool too. So I think this is all going to be ok now!!! I have a total of about 3000 worms, close to 1000 pupa and 4 beetles!!! I am well on my way to great healthy snacks for my chickies!!!!! All 14 of them!!!

 

[del gallinero]

I got the worms a few weeks ago and have been watching them ever since. Very relaxing. Also trying to see if they are ok in my set up. THankfully, after
a few long weeks, I saw my first beetle!!! But his left wing was deformed. Then the second one had a left wing issue.It looked like a
worm skin was stuck on it or through it.When I tried to get it off, it pulled on the beetle's wing, so I stopped. I was reassured when the
third beetle looked normal. Hooray!. I keep a fruit and a veggie in there all the time, but I am wondering how often to add other grain
type food. SO far, since seeing the beetles, what I have done is throw in about a1/4 to1/2 cup of mixed cornmeal, oat bran, buckwheat flour and dried milk once a week.
Their substrate is oatmeal and wheat bran. When should I dump the substrate and start fresh? THey can't eat that forever, can they?

 

[ralleia]

I move each of the beetles to a fresh drawer to mate and lay their eggs. Eventually, between worms turning into beetles (and getting moved) and me removing big worms to feed to my chickens, there aren't any more worms to be found in there. Then I take the contents outside and dump them into a big sieve to catch any remaining worms.

The spent substrate (frass) gets incorporated into my garden or fed into the worm composter.

 

[galanie]

You know, when those beetles first come out of that skin they pupate in, they do have wrinkled wings. I'm thinking the wrinkled wing ones straighten out after a while cause I almost never see a truly deformed looking dark one. I don't really care if they look deformed though, so long as they give me more wormies! I mean, they don't even need those wings anyway.

 

[WestKnollAmy]

That's what I have been saying. The ones that look deformed to start with here wind up being normal when I check them again in a week or so.
I even took some out and put in a jar to watch them. I meant to record with photos but got side tracked and didn't do it. But they looked normal in less than 2 weeks.
I have one or two black beetles that have a small amount of wing damage but out of about 600-700 I don't think that is bad at all.