Mealworms - both worms and starter colonies FS/T

[spookyevilone]

Howdy.
On another thread, I mentioned that I have a very large colony of mealworms. From the number of PM's and emails I've gotten, it's clear this is something people would be interested in purchasing.

Here are my rates:
100 mealworms @ $2.00
1000 mealworms @ $15.00
Starter colony, including 700 mealworms and mature beetles, housing, and directions/tips on mealworm husbandry @ $25.00

The difference between the straight worm price and the colony price is that straight worms are sifted out of the substrate I have mine in and put in new substrate to be shipped to you. The colony is a chunk of my colony, bedding and all, so there are all stages of the mealworm development present - egg, larva, worm, beetle, and you'll also get a container to house them in to start you off.

Shipping is either first class mail if you live somewhere warm or priority mail flat rate if you live somewhere cold right now - the worms can handle anything above freezing for several hours, but if it's below freezing, they'll die very fast if left outside in a mailbox. The starter colony has to go in the large flat rate box, and costs about $12 to ship that way. To ship 100 mealworms first class costs about $2. Priority is $4.80. I always send with delivery confirmation, but I pay that.

My colony is 8 years old and well established. The worms are fed a mix of organic wheat bran, organic fortified baby cereal, organic oats, and fresh fruits and veggies for extra vitamins and moisture. They also get ground up quail eggshells left over from the hardboiled eggs that get fed back to the birds. I don't put anything into the worms I wouldn't feed to my quail.

I can take PayPal but am also always willing to barter.

If you're interested in purchasing, PM me with the following info:

Your name

The address to be shipped to

How many worms you'd like or whether you want the starter colony

First Class or Priority Mail (Caveat: I will NOT send them first class to any state that gets below freezing temperatures until Spring. I will only ship priority mail with signature confirmation)

Paypal or Barter offer? Feel free to include offer. The only things I'm not interested in are large fowl or waterfowl. No room to keep 'em.


So, there you go. New thread with information listed so we can stop hijacking the other thread and now everyone knows what it costs to ship and how much I charge

-Spooky

 

[LlamaChick]

What exactly do you do with your worms? I know you feed them to chickens but that's it.

 

[Shared Acres]

How do you house them?

Like if I bought some and wanted to raise them from you?

I'm trying to figure out if it's worth it to do it.

 

[spookyevilone]

Quote:
I started raising them because I had rescued sugar gliders - someone dumped them at the wildlife rehab center. 8 years ago, not a whole lot was out there on how to take care of the gliders, so I had my brother, who lives in Australia, go to the zoo and ask what to do. They said, bugs, bugs, bugs, more bugs, oh, and then some fruit and fresh water.

I used to have crickets too but I couldn't stand having the jumpy little buggers get loose in my house and chirp all night long. Sugar gliders eat a LOT of mealworms. When the gliders finally went to the big treehouse in the sky, I didn't have the heart to do anything with the colony so it just kept growing. I sell them to fishers and people with reptiles or other insectivores through word of mouth and I've sold starter colonies too. I donate a lot to the wildlife rehab center. The colony is so established that it produces a lot of mealworms.

Then, last month I got some quail. The quail had never seen a mealworm before they came to me - they were raised on game bird crumble only. I chucked some in their food dish just to see what they'd do and they went crazy for the worms, so now that's what I do with them.

In Thailand, people roast them in woks and eat them as snacks.

I think I'll stick to feeding them to animals.

-Spooky

 

[Chicken Woman]

I have meal worm farm in the cool part of my basement where it is dark. My chickens love love love them. Great source of protein especially if you live where they are not getting any bugs when free ranging.

In Montana we have not had a bug in sight for some time and won't for a few months.

I like the idea of adding dry organic baby food. I will have to get some. IM sure it has alot of nutrients.

 

[spookyevilone]

Quote:
I house mine in tupperware totes, big ones, and I ship them in small ones. My totes have had the lids modified to provide air and light - I cut the center of the lid out, replaced it with window screen, and then cut side vents around the top of the sides of the tote and replaced them with window screen too. The starter totes aren't that fancy.

I think it cost me something like $100 to set up the totes, but mine are huge. You can keep them in any rigid plastic container that's too tall for them to crawl out of and has air and light. Don't try to keep them in cardboard or styrofoam boxes. I had someone do that and they found out the hard way that mealworms will eat right through 'em.

Feeding them is easy - they'll eat any sort of oat or grain. The cheapest thing to keep them in is wheat bran. If you go to a feed mill and buy in bulk, it's very cost effective. For moisture, put fresh fruits/veggies in a cardboard egg carton lid and set that on the substrate. They'll crawl up into it to eat the food.

Mine get fancier food, because I buy it for baking anyway so I just buy it in bulk at the co-op.

They're easy to keep. There's a bit more to it if you want to have a long term colony, though.

-Spooky

 

[spookyevilone]

Quote:
I keep mine next to the bird cages because that way they get light. My basement is so cold they'd go dormant quick

The baby cereal idea was the result of an exercise in frustration. My sugar gliders were supposed to get bird vitamin supplements but they wouldn't touch water with vitamins in it, and if I dusted the bugs, they wouldn't touch those, either. I was going out of my mind trying to figure out how to get the proper vitamins into them when my sister asked me to pick her up a box of baby cereal for my niece. I happened to glance at the ingredient list and lo and behold, all good things! Fortified baby cereal had pretty much everything a growing bird or baby needed, and it was oodles cheaper than the pet vitamins my frustrating little stinkbutts wouldn't touch. I bought several boxes, took it home, dumped it in, and had fat and healthy sugar gliders from then on. The bird vitamins went to my other sister, who is mad for Hyacinths. My baby cereal is organic because I do all my shopping at the local co-op where I have a membership and that's what they sell.

-Spooky

 

[shelleyd2008]

How long would the mealworms keep, and how would you store them? I have (right now) 3 pharoah quail, 2 A&M, one button (adult) and 15 button babies. I'm thinking you wouldn't feed them to the quail every day, and the chickens get all sorts of goodies anyway. But it would be more cost effective to get a lot, then store the rest? I read online they can live for 2 weeks if refridgerated, is that right?
How much would shipping be on 1000? (I'm too cold right now to get first class!)
ETA: I live with my dad right now, and he would flip OUT if I was growing worms in his house too! I think he is about sick of all the birds as it is! This spring when I build my big coop, there will be plenty of room for some mealworm colonies!
ETA again!: or would you be interested in some button eggs, once the babies start doing their thing? I have some pretty funky colors, and they are 2 weeks old already!

 

[spookyevilone]

Quote:
Mealworms are stored in a rigid plastic container. Ice cream bucket would work fine for 1000. Fill it about half full of food for them (the wheat bran or whatever), dump the worms in, add a few slices of potato or other veggie bits on half the top of a cardboard egg carton and put that on top of the worms. Make sure there's at least 3" of space between the top of the egg carton and the top of the bucket so they can't get out. Put a few holes in the lid for air, put it on, and ignore 'em until you want to scoop some out. I put fresh veggies in every couple days and throw the old ones on the compost heap so they don't stink or go moldy. If you keep them somewhere cool - like a basement - they won't turn into beetles as fast. They need light and warmth to do that.

You /can/ keep them in the fridge, but I don't recommend it. They go dormant and don't eat or drink and get horribly dehydrated and pretty much worthless. If you must keep them in the fridge (and believe me, people freak out more about worms in the fridge than they do worms somewhere they don't have to look at 'em!) - don't keep them in there longer than a week at a time, and then take them out for at least 3 days in a normal temperature room so they can eat, and make sure they have some veggies for fluids. I suggest 1 week in, 1 week out for refrigeration storage if you must do it, but I really don't recommend it. To give you an idea of how many worms 1000 is, it would fill most of a large yogurt container. It's about 3 cups' worth.

I feed all my quail - Coturnix and Buttons - some mealworms every day. The Coturnix pairs get about 12-15 mealworms with their evening feed, the Buttons get 4-6 per pair. If I had your setup, I'd go through 35 mealworms a day for the big quail and 48 for the buttons, which means 1000 would be about 12 days supply. You may not want to feed yours every day, though.

You get a discount if you buy 1000, but you wouldn't want to try to store that many in the container they ship in, so you'd need to set up a storage bin for them. Priority mail is a flat rate so for just 1000 worms, it'd be something like $4.80 to send.

Sure, I'd be interested in trading for button eggs. PM me and we can chat about it.

-Spooky

 

[mcg30_40]

My mom kept these worms and feed them to her blue birds for winter. Whe could walk outside and shake the bowl she carried them to the feeder in and they would all fly to her (these were wild bluebirds). I imagine chickens would go nuts for these things, bug or worm form. She kept her's in totes from the dollar store with holes in the top for air, the containers were clear so that provided the light.