Mealworm farming

[wattsjadajoe]

I now have 2 drawers full of beetles.....over 300!
And 11 drawers that looks alive!!! The bran seems to all be moving!!! Wee Hee!!!! I must have 10000 mealies moving. I would suggest...just let em do their thing. I cut a slice of potato every 2-3 days and they are loving it. But do keep in mind...I am in Colorado, Pueblo area...so my humidity is like 10%!!! Takes a long time for mold or the veggies to rot.


Joe

 

[Stark]

Well it is spring & thinking about time to start worm farm for my birds.........My question concerns the bedding,I see a couple posts preferring wheat bran to oatmeal. I must be gluten free & see a couple posts complaining about crumbly,dusty oatmeal. Has anyone used rolled feed oats(horse feed) as they would be coarser ?
Of all the threads on BYC,this one has to be the friendliest & most interesting ! Thanks ALL for making worms fun !

You can try to find soybean meal or hulls (feed mill may have it). I've seen mealworms/darkling beetles doing quite well in spills of straight up soymeal...might work in a bin too.

 

[wolftracks]

I have no idea how many I have now. I don't really care. As long as they like eachother enough to make more, I'm good. The last time I lost all my worms. This time using the Gamebird crumbles and even sometimes remembering to add a carrot or something, I have at least 5 times more than I started with ........maybe 6 weeks ago? Maybe 2 months? I'm working on a lot of projects right now, but I have another container that's bigger this time. When I get some time, I'll move beetles into it. I'm too blind to see anything really tiny, but I thought something was wrong with a bunch of the worms until I realized those were some fat babies. I think I got too envolved with them before, but this has been kind of set it and forget it and it's going better than I expected.

 

[DMRippy]

OK I have a little question.... I see most of you prefer wheat bran as bedding.... is it small so that it can fall through the screen? I am having a hard time sifting my worms out. I use spent barley and it is fine, I think they eat it since it is mostly gone in my original bin, BUT the barley and oatmeal are hard to sort the worms, pupae and beetles.

I have a couple of BYC'er friends that want to start a mealworm farm and it took me over an HOUR to sift 1000 by weight. I also need to sift about 4000 more out and I am worried about the time involved. I have used a spoon and colander..... but the bugs just fall through and I have to sift again

I have screen and would like to use a bedding that would just fall through the screen with the eggs and little worms. Remember I have about a BAZILLION bugs now so I need to buy in bulk..........


Suggestions PLEASE! I don't plan on making this a career, but some local sales would help since I have so many worms and bugs.

 

[gale65]

I have my larva (worms) in wheat flour and mixed in some oatmeal too.  The wheat flour is great - I use a colander to sift out the flour over a bucket and all that remains are the larva and pupa.  Then I use a plastic spoon to pick out he pupa & dump the worms into the bucket with the flour - or toss the contents to the chicks.  When I'm finished I put the whole bucket of worms and flour back into the bin.  The only problem now is that the oatmeal looks like pupa - so it's annoying to have to sift through that stuff too.  Next time I'll leave the oatmeat out and just use wheat flour.  I'll look into the wheat bran - if I can find it nearby.

Do you mean wheat flour like you use for cooking?

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I have an assortment of strainers for use depending on what stage the substrate is in at the time of sifting.
We sift out more than 10,000 meal worms a week for shipping out. There are constant changes in our methods as we try to find the best way for us and our happy mealies.
Here are two we use. One we bought at the Flea Market and the other we bought at Walmart.

 

[bobbieschicks]

Yes.

Do you mean wheat flour like you use for cooking?

 

[DMRippy]

I have an assortment of strainers for use depending on what stage the substrate is in at the time of sifting.
We sift out more than 10,000 meal worms a week for shipping out. There are constant changes in our methods as we try to find the best way for us and our happy mealies.
Here are two we use. One we bought at the Flea Market and the other we bought at Walmart.

Does the wheat bran fall through those so mostly worms left behind? I think i will be heading to walmart for a variety of strainers. Thanks that is helpful.

 

[Darlagips]

Wonder if this would be a good project for the grandkids with supervision, of course.

 

[hemet dennis]

Wonder if this would be a good project for the grandkids with supervision, of course.

As long as they don't eat to many and all the profit.