Question for those breeding mealworms

[Sjisty]

I just harvested a lot of my mealworms. I started my farm in September and over the last few weeks have watched my tiny worms grow into big, juicy chicken food. I have a large slotted spoon that I used to sift through and get the larger worms out. Some went through the holes, of course, but I got a huge amount that way. The smaller ones that fell through will be harvested in a few more days.

I have a three-drawer system with two drawers for the worms and one for the beetles. After one more sifting, I will combine the two drawers of worms and let what's left morph into beetles. I will clean the empty drawer (after combining the two), set it up, and add the beetles that are in the third drawer so they can start over again. Any beetles that morph will go in with them. Then it's waiting time for the drawer that I took the beetles out of for the eggs to hatch, so I can start all over again!

So ... I will end up with one drawer of beetles, one of eggs, and one of worms ready to turn to beetles. Eventually I hope to have a steady supply of worms without having to wait so long. I probably should have kept some more back, but my chickies were so happy I just couldn't say no!

 

[SandyK]

I've been wanting to do this for my chickies and also the bluebirds that come to my feeders in the winter. After reading all the directions again on the link that Chesapeake gave, it seems like a lot of work and trouble. Congrats to you that have been successful. I'll keep reading and trying to get my nerve up. Those things in the pictures look creepy!!

 

[HEChicken]

Hens & Chicks :

I would think in Kansas that a flour mill could be found rather easily

LOL, you'd think so, wouldn't you? But as I live in Wichita, the largest city in the state, its less rural than you might think. Although we can leave Wichita and be surrounded by agricultural communities, I don't know where a single mill is. We also don't have food co-ops (as far as I know).

However I appreciate ALL of the conversation on this thread. I am currently using oatmeal as the substrate, having not been able to find the wheat bran, and it seems to be working okay. It sounds like it will continue to be fine. I started with only 50 mealworms and kind of wish I'd started with 100. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find they had pupated after only a couple of weeks. I'd always heard that starting a colony of mealworms can take months but it seems to be going faster than I expected. I then read that they stay in the pupae stage for 6-18 days and some of them have been pupae already for about 10 days so I expect to see beetles no later than about this time next week - yeah! Then I guess I have a little wait for them to lay eggs and see the little baby worms. I am not using the 3-drawer system but just keeping them in a sweater size plastic box. I am actually using the cricket gel for water (only because I had a whole jar left over from a failed attempt to breed crickets

) but I love the damp newspaper idea for when they've drunk all the gel - couldn't get simpler than that. For food I kind of throw in whatever we have on hand - a slice of potato, carrot, celery or apple core. Once I gave them a used herbal teabag for fluid. However I am just winging it so enjoyed reading how everyone else is doing it.

With only 50, at this point I just pick the skins off the top of the oatmeal. I'm keeping those in a cup and will offer them to the chooks at some point - I'm sure they'll even enjoy them and figure they won't hurt even if they don't offer a lot of nutrition. I can't wait until I have enough to be able to offer them a handful at a time of live worms though - they'll go nuts!​

 

[Sjisty]

Quote:
It's actually quite simple. The most trouble I had was when I tried hand-picking the little guys out of the wheat bran. The sifting method works in seconds. The worms and beetles pretty much take care of themselves. I just throw some baby carrots or a half potato in there every now and then.

 

[HEChicken]

Quote:
It's actually quite simple. The most trouble I had was when I tried hand-picking the little guys out of the wheat bran. The sifting method works in seconds. The worms and beetles pretty much take care of themselves. I just throw some baby carrots or a half potato in there every now and then.

I concur. Originally I read about raising both mealworms and crickets, and crickets sounded much easier, so I decided to breed them. Well, after two failed attempts (the crickets all died off without apparently ever laying a single egg), I got a little punnet of mealworms and just threw them in the same container the crickets had been in. By this time I was ready to give up the idea altogether so really did very little for the mealies except to throw in something fresh for them to eat every few days. To my surprise they have now almost all pupated despite the lack of care and attention. Since this is further than I ever got with crickets, I would have to say they are easier so far.

 

[Freeholder]

Does anyone raising mealworms also have experience with raising earthworms? Do you think it's more practical to raise mealworms for the chickens for a protein supplement, or earthworms? I'd been planning on starting a worm bin under my rabbit cages anyway, just wondering if there would be any value to also having mealworms?

Kathleen

 

[HEChicken]

I raised earthworms several years ago. I bought the "kit" from someone on eBay, but as the kit turned out to just be a sweater sized plastic box with air holes, plus 1000 Red Wrigglers and a little information sheet, if I were to do it over, I would just buy the worms and set up my own habitat. Lesson learned. The instructions said to use shredded newspaper as the substrate, which I did, and it was incredible how quickly they turned it into worm castings. Meanwhile, I gave them coffee grounds and veggie scraps and they all disappeared. The colony thrived for months, and the wrigglers apparently multiplied. Then I made a huge mistake. I used Shweat for cat litter, which is only ground up wheat. So I decided to put some of the Swheat/Pee clumps in the worm bin. The worms did not appreciate this and showed their displeasure by dying off almost overnight. I dumped the remaining living worms into my front garden bed (which has benefited enormously ever since and continues to have a large worm population). The following year I bought a dozen night crawlers from Walmart, thinking to keep them as a colony. They didn't do nearly as well as the Red Wrigglers and didn't last long, and I haven't tried since. Mind you, this was before I had chooks, but I would say it was pretty darned easy to keep them up until my mistake.

 

[luvarabhorses]

Earthworms carry a lot of parasites so keep in mind you need to worm more often.

I find the best way to clean the frass out of the mealworms is to dump the whole farm into a lingerie bag that you use when you want to wash bras and undies. The wholes in the mesh are not too small. I take it outside and shake it, shake it from my deck so I am not breathing it and I can pick up any worms that escaped. I usually only have about 4 or 5 escapees slipping through doing this. I tried colanders, aquarium nets but it takes forever and worms tend to sling around in my impatience and go flying.

Wipe out the empty farm and make sure it is dry and clean before dumping them back in. Then I top them with a whole box of ground up Great Value Bran Flakes.

 

[ShaggysGirl]

I get mine at the local feed store.

 

[ErieSpurs]

Quote:
I would avoid those. We used to feed our Monitors super worms when they were too small to eat mice. You have to cut off the mandibles/heads because they bite. I've heard that if the lizard swallows the super worm and you do not remove the head/ mandibles, the super worm will eat its way out.

Not sure if it's true, but not worth the risk IMO