MEALWORMS - Raising Them the Easy Way

[earth_ma]

Quote:

 

[Blueberry Hill]

how often will I have to add more wheat bran? How often for the veggies? How soon will I be able to harvest the worms for the hens?

also, anyone ever used brewers grain? I have a source to get that cheap or free and wondered if that would be good since it has moisture in it?

One more question. How likely are they to escape their container?

 

[drgnflyz]

Thanks to Joe Bryant for the informative meal worm farming post! I now have a complete life cycle of meal worms for my chickies!

 

[Arielle]

Quote:
We started small: 50 to start with.

 

[galanie]

Quote:
Where is the hazard?

All happy, healthy mealworms, never been refrigerated like the ones you buy in a pet store. Promised that I have all hand raised them, so they will not bite anyone. Have to admit that my chickens LOVE them like nothing else and they are running towards me like dynamit

and I have to watch my hands and fingers when I feed mealworms. But I guess my chickens are a hazard at that point.........

I have sold the 120 K locally on "Craigs List", but have mailed some in the past from the West Coast to Virginia at the East Coast. No questions asked by the post office, the lady just laughed when I volunteered the information about what was in the package.

However, if you can post a link here from the USPS that shipping of mealworms or beetles are considered to be bio hazardous, I would be interested in that information as I am having some excellent mealworms right now.

my reason for asking, i have some extra beetles that i was going to offer to someone who wanted a start for postage only, but did not want to send them if they are considered biohardous.
from your post you have used postal service and ups for them, is this right?///thanks

No, they are not considered bio hazardous by the USPS. People mail ants for ant farms, earthworms, mealworms, baby chicks, and all sorts of other live insects and animals. There are provisions for such in the Domestic Mail Manual, the bible for all things postal. There is a version of this book online at the USPS site but it's not easy to find. Just take my word. Crazy Huhn is doing fine and no one would question her shipping method.

- Retiree from USPS

 

[TrystInn]

We've just started our first mealworm breeding project with 3 6 quart Sterlite blue containers! We're using wheat germ, carrots and a few other vegetable scraps for bedding and food. Starting out with 500 small mealworms, but having seen how much room is left over in the container, I'm going back for more!

A few questions, though.

With our setup, how many more worms can we support with a 6 quart container?

We're keeping them in the coop with our chick brooders, so we're hoping the infrared lamps should keep the worms nice and cozy. Especially since, in the Pacific Northwest we're known for COLD and WET. We've set up a thermometer and a humidity gauge, what's the best range we should go for in the worm bin? Will that differ for the developing eggs? How about the beetles?

We've drilled holes in the sides of the containers - how much air do the worms need? How will we know if the holes we've drilled in aren't enough? (Please don't let it be massive die off!)

 

[galanie]

All I really know about numbers per size of container is that if all you can see is a mass of worms, it's probably too many and if you can't really see any, there's too few.

They don't really need a ton of air circulation. What you've already done is probably more than they even need. I have a really large container with about a 3"x8" section cut out of the top and covered it with screening. And they're doing fine. I suppose if you start seeing dead ones then something is wrong, and it not then it's all right. Though sometimes you'll see a bunch of dead worms at first if you got them from a pet store.

 

[onafixedincome]

I keep asking folks..."How many worms per square inch/foot/yard, please!?" and I keep getting "We don't know!" as an answer.

Right at the moment, I have a deeply bedded (8" or so of wheat bran) container which currently holds in the neighborhood of 2700 beetles. There are beetles at all depths and already a bunch of teensy bitsy babies, so I'm assuming that they are reasonably content. It's one of the relatively large Sterilite containers (six bucks on sale, usually runs about 9 -11 or so)....12x18" or 12x24"....my dog ate my measuring tape, so it's a guess! It stays topless for maximum air circulation.

Worms...In the typical dollar store sized shoebox plastic container, about 1,000 seem pretty happy in about 3" of bran. I usually stack them criss-cross style, without lids, to assure maximum ventilation.

Now I have my first box of bedding-with-baby-bugs, and man, is it PACKED with teensys, all the way up to smalls! I don't doubt I'll have to split off shoeboxes as they get old enough to sort out.

All my containers, BTW, are clear. The bedroom tends to stay dim, and about oh...60-65 degrees F. I started with these guys back in...oh, early November, as I recall.

Hope that helps!

 

[galanie]

I couldn't tell you how many beetles or worms or whatever I have in any space simply because I started with an unknown number and I'm not going to count them LOL. I'm betting a lot of folks are like that. Great answer onafixedincome. I think that's the best I've read on the question

 

[Geno2]

Those are Soldier Fly maggots and are great for the compost pile. They devour everything. They are also great chicken food. There are internet sites about setting up buckets in order to raise them for chicken and fish food. Don't worry about them. I found them in my compost and searched the web and found alot of info about them. They are totally different than house fly maggots.