Need help with my Meal Worms, Please.

[redhen]

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Thanks, i'll check it out!

 

[bayouchica]

Okay...Soo i'm trying out raising my own meal worms for my birds and the boys fishing. i am STILL confused though. i dont know if i leave the beetles in with the mealworms..will they eat them? also..i seem to have several stages of growth going on in mine. I have mealworms,light brown beetles, black beetles (whats the differance in these?...age?)..i have beetle larve...UGH! do i have to seperate these growth stages? and how in the heck do i do that? right now they are in a small tote..i need to put them in a bigger one...do i just toss them all in the new tote with the dirty stuff/waste also? because isnt that where the eggs will be? heeeeelp! heres the pic of my diaster!! what do i do?

Hey, it's okay

I have a few meal worm bins like that. so long as they have a source of moisture they'll be alright.
The light brown ones are the young ones, you may want to start another bin with those.You can put the ones in the larve stage in with those.
If you have a way to sift them, using like a screen strainer... save the fine waste because it probably has baby mealies in it.Seperate them in another bin & add some oats to that,after awhile they'll be big enough to see.

Good luck, I've got to replenish my population, with baby chics running around it's hard not to feed them all of them,lol.

Miriam

 

[xke4]

I have been doing this for a couple of years now and it looks like you are doing fine. I would suggest that you remove your pupa when you see them and put them into their own bin. That way, your beetles will develop in an environment without any mealworms to eat. I have never seen them eating the worms but have read about them cannablizing. Remove your plump mealworms and store them in the fridge. They will keep for weeks in a sleepy state and usually will not pupate. Use margarine or yogurt containers, cut a hole in the top for ventilation and throw in a bit of bedding. I would caution you against throwing out all of the old bedding in your large container cuz I guarantee there are hundreds of eggs in it.The light brown beetles are the newly hatched ones. They will darken.

 

[redhen]

awesome! thanks for all the help! so...basically i need another tote to transfer the young beetles to? then..what do i do with them? wait until i see baby meal worms and then move the beetles again? how many totes do i need to keep a colony going? thanks for all the help guys!!! also...can i put the beetle pupa in with the adult beetles? or will the adults eat the beetle pupa?

 

[debilorrah]

Wow! That bump really helped!!

 

[redhen]

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you aint kidding Debi! thanks again!!

i've been stressing over these things for a while now...

 

[Tiramisu]

I think the beetles die within 10 days or a couple weeks, so you just wait for them to do that and feed them to the chickens. Not sure with the eggs, I would guess you just leave it and wait till you see the worms, but I'm not sure.

 

[claud]

Your mealworms looked great.
That is what you want - all different stages. That means they are living, thriving and reproducing. They can go on like that for a long time but after a while you'll have to sift out all the worm poo(very granular stuff) and renew the bran or oats or whatever you're feeding.
As others suggested you can start new bins if you want. I've never heard of them cannibalizing.
Are you giving them moisture? You can nestled half a carrot down in the bran/oats under the paper - or I sometimes use several baby carrots because that's what's in my fridge.

 

[redhen]

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Thanks for the help Tira..10 days i can handle....but if they lived for months..UGH!

the worms dont bother me..but the beetles i dont like cause i know they can fly at me!

 

[Tiramisu]

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Thanks for the help Tira..10 days i can handle....but if they lived for months..UGH!

the worms dont bother me..but the beetles i dont like cause i know they can fly at me!

LOL yeah that would be too long. We haven't really added anything to our meal worms yet, we should do that tomorrow lol