Eventually you might want to look into exoticnutrition.com or chubbymealworms.com to buy your dried meal worms in bulk. (It goes back an forth who is cheaper and depends on how many you get). Buying them in the small pet store size packets is very expensive. (You can also look into raising your own meal worms, but that is not for every body and my ducks like the dried better than live... Go figure!) The bulk meal worms have some pupa and the occasional beetle, but the ducks don't mind at all. We get 44 lbs at a time then pour them into Lowes 5 gallon buckets. We also store their food, cracked corn, oyster shell and grit in those buckets, then put the buckets in a deck bench. Most 50 lb bags (food, corn, oyster shell) pour into two of those buckets making them easier to handle and 50 lbs of grit will fit in one bucket and 11 lbs of meal worms fits in about 1-1/2 buckets. This has worked so well for us that we actually bought a second bench this spring so we have the first bench set up like so:
Thank you for sharing that! Very helpful. My ducklings so far havent been super fond of any of the "Treats" I've given them. I chopped up some dandelions and put in their water. They act like they can't get enough... but seem to have a hard time getting them down, or they are purposely spitting them back out... because they always wind up on the floor. I really hope I don't have the only Ducks on the planet that don't like dandelions, because that was a big motivator in getting my husband on board. He DESPISES dandelions in our yard! lol I did buy some frozen peas and I pinch those before giving to them. They don't seem to care for the skin of the pea. They like them, but don't LOVE them. Any thoughts on that? I want to really win them over!Eventually you might want to look into exoticnutrition.com or chubbymealworms.com to buy your dried meal worms in bulk. (It goes back an forth who is cheaper and depends on how many you get). Buying them in the small pet store size packets is very expensive. (You can also look into raising your own meal worms, but that is not for every body and my ducks like the dried better than live... Go figure!) The bulk meal worms have some pupa and the occasional beetle, but the ducks don't mind at all. We get 44 lbs at a time then pour them into Lowes 5 gallon buckets. We also store their food, cracked corn, oyster shell and grit in those buckets, then put the buckets in a deck bench. Most 50 lb bags (food, corn, oyster shell) pour into two of those buckets making them easier to handle and 50 lbs of grit will fit in one bucket and 11 lbs of meal worms fits in about 1-1/2 buckets. This has worked so well for us that we actually bought a second bench this spring so we have the first bench set up like so:
And the second bench is overflow. Before we got the overflow bench, we didn't have the grit / oyster shell in bulk and we would typically use only two food containers (one bag) at a time and got the meal worms 22 lbs at a time instead of 44 lbs. Then shuffle around the overflow. BTW walking toward this bench ALWAYS gets the ducks attention. Well I babbled on excessively for a minor comment on meal wormsbut this has worked so well for us that I wanted to share.
Eventually you might want to look into exoticnutrition.com or chubbymealworms.com to buy your dried meal worms in bulk. (It goes back an forth who is cheaper and depends on how many you get). Buying them in the small pet store size packets is very expensive. (You can also look into raising your own meal worms, but that is not for every body and my ducks like the dried better than live... Go figure!) The bulk meal worms have some pupa and the occasional beetle, but the ducks don't mind at all. We get 44 lbs at a time then pour them into Lowes 5 gallon buckets. We also store their food, cracked corn, oyster shell and grit in those buckets, then put the buckets in a deck bench. Most 50 lb bags (food, corn, oyster shell) pour into two of those buckets making them easier to handle and 50 lbs of grit will fit in one bucket and 11 lbs of meal worms fits in about 1-1/2 buckets. This has worked so well for us that we actually bought a second bench this spring so we have the first bench set up like so:
And the second bench is overflow. Before we got the overflow bench, we didn't have the grit / oyster shell in bulk and we would typically use only two food containers (one bag) at a time and got the meal worms 22 lbs at a time instead of 44 lbs. Then shuffle around the overflow. BTW walking toward this bench ALWAYS gets the ducks attention. Well I babbled on excessively for a minor comment on meal wormsbut this has worked so well for us that I wanted to share.
Looks like you got it covered, but in case others were looking too (and I did just go outside
Looks like you got it covered, but in case others were looking too (and I did just go outside), here is the setup:
Now you have to realize I went out, opened it up and took a picture. Just so you can see how hard Pavlov works, I turned to the right and took another picture:
When I stepped out they were on the other side of the yard around the pool....
Turd Birds!
What a nice set-up!! Also the second picture of the ducks... is hilarious! They are beautiful by the way!Looks like you got it covered, but in case others were looking too (and I did just go outside), here is the setup:
Now you have to realize I went out, opened it up and took a picture. Just so you can see how hard Pavlov works, I turned to the right and took another picture:
When I stepped out they were on the other side of the yard around the pool....
Turd Birds!
