Question on feeding my Meal Worms

[Mike592]

I don't have chickens yet as I'm finishing the coop build now, but thanks to this forum - I am now a meal worm farmer! The wife is VERY (not) pleased with me.

I have a question about feeding the 1000 meal worms that just got delivered. They have a couple inches of bran. In addition, I've sliced up a few baby carrots for water and additional food. They attack those things! They also either completely devour the carrots in a couple hours (doubtful) or they bury them under the bran. So how do I know how often to give them more carrots or something else? Do I have to go digging through their container every time to see if the previous carrots are gone first? Any good rules of thumb I need to know? Thanks.

 

[Mike592]

As an aside, I had no idea the worms themselves had little legs! That skeeved out my wife plenty extra!

 

[LBejaran]

That's so cool! I'm glad you asked this question...and started raising meal worms. I've only kept meal worms alive on a smaller scale, but here's what I've learned.

I find that when feeding them, just give them a huge chunk and let them go at it. For such a large amount of worms, I'd recommend feeding them about 2 or 3 potatoes a week. Or if you really like giving them carrots, about six a week. At the end of said week, you will know for certain if you need to increase the amount of food or lessen it. Also, don't chop it up too much. As it turns out, my wormies loved burrowing in their food. I guess it's just something they do.

Oh, I forgot. Depending on where you store them, how much they eat may differ. If they are in a warmer room or outdoors, they'll need more food seeing as they grow faster in warmer temps. If they are indoors or are being stores in temperatures a little lower, they will eat and mature much more slowly. When I had mine, they turned into Beatles and had babies before I realized it. I live in Texas and they were outside.

Hope this helps. When feeding them halved potatoes, you won't have such a hard time finding the scraps.