Should I buy eggs or wait it out?

[Chaneys Ranch]

Mealies are an easy thing! true, they do like warm but there's ways around that too. They will grow in cool temps but its very slow. I am on that super long mealworm thread its

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/492636/mealworm-farming

i got gazillions now, started my farm in early august.. It is just that easy, 10 gallon tank works, or anything plastic too. Deep isn't as important, you just need a few inches of bedding, and like 4 inches above that bedding height. They cannot fly or climb out. You can use wheat bran, rolled oats, dry chick feed as bedding. Bake or freeze the bedding to kill unwanted stuff like grain mites, they are gross and can get out into your dry food if you get them. (I never have...) Go get you some mealies. I started with about 1000 (a cupful), put them in the bedding. Don't buy the big superworms, they aren't the same and almost impossible to raise. feed them scrap potato, apple, celery, lettuce, once a week is good. put the food on a plastic lid, paper plate etc. The important thing is keep em dry. no water. check your veges every few days and remove any moldy stuff.
once you get pupa and then beetles, you will start seeing the worms in 4 - 6 weeks. The easiest way around the heat.... Get a reptile mat, or seedling mat, it can be attached to the bottom of the farm. usually temp will be around 90, it won't melt the plastics. super cheap, $10-15.
that's really all there is to it. My daughter feeds them to her sugar gliders, and i give them to my Oscars also. Awesome winter protein source

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Roger wants to help me count them.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

MC Chick has the eggs. Right now all she has is German Barred Shepherds

That!s perfect, i prefer the large breeds anyway

Hey we need to talk about meal worms.

I am a closet meal worm farmer. Don't tell anybody. Do you ferment yours?

I have thought about it...hmmm i may try it yet!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

OK! the thread has surpassed 2000 replies!

now to go back and read the last 10 posts... lol

WOOHOO!

People must have realized this is our therapy to keep us sane..er..um.. insane? I love this thread the most

 

[okallthis4eggs]

Mealies are an easy thing! true, they do like warm but there's ways around that too. They will grow in cool temps but its very slow. I am on that super long mealworm thread its

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/492636/mealworm-farming

i got gazillions now, started my farm in early august.. It is just that easy, 10 gallon tank works, or anything plastic too. Deep isn't as important, you just need a few inches of bedding, and like 4 inches above that bedding height. They cannot fly or climb out. You can use wheat bran, rolled oats, dry chick feed as bedding. Bake or freeze the bedding to kill unwanted stuff like grain mites, they are gross and can get out into your dry food if you get them. (I never have...) Go get you some mealies. I started with about 1000 (a cupful), put them in the bedding. Don't buy the big superworms, they aren't the same and almost impossible to raise. feed them scrap potato, apple, celery, lettuce, once a week is good. put the food on a plastic lid, paper plate etc. The important thing is keep em dry. no water. check your veges every few days and remove any moldy stuff.
once you get pupa and then beetles, you will start seeing the worms in 4 - 6 weeks. The easiest way around the heat.... Get a reptile mat, or seedling mat, it can be attached to the bottom of the farm. usually temp will be around 90, it won't melt the plastics. super cheap, $10-15.
that's really all there is to it. My daughter feeds them to her sugar gliders, and i give them to my Oscars also. Awesome winter protein source

I'll add my meal worm experience and how I got started with this post. I bought two of those little small tubs of meal worms that they sell at Wal Mart around here. Wal Mart keeps them is a small refrigerator in the sporting goods section and they are sold as fish bait. Keeping them cold stops them from turning into beetles so cold is never a problem just can't let them freeze. After the fishing trip I probably had less than a hundred mealies left over. I read enough of the meal worm thread that jchny 2000 posted above to realize I had everything I needed to get started. I used a large box of quick oats and the 10 gallon fish tank that had been sitting empty in the garage. I did add about a cup full of chicken layer crumble. I didn't bake anything because this whole thing was kept in the garage at the time. It stays hot in the garage and thats what they like to multiply. The box of oats and the cup of layer crumble made it about 2" deep in the 10 gallon fish tank and thats still all I have in there to date. A couple of baby carrots, apple, potatoe, ect for moisture about once a week and thats it. I keep it in the house in a closet for now but it will return to the garage when the weather gets warmer. The garage gets much hotter than the house in the summer and is dry so its the perfect enviroment. My less than a hundred has multiplied at least to a thousand and I still have live beetles laying eggs (You know how we love egg layers). Mine will be a slower process to reach large numbers but I like the idea that I only have invested the cost of a box of quick oats and a cup of layer crumble. The mealies were going to get tossed to the chickens anyway and I did get to use them for bait. As it stands now I will not have to buy bait anymore and the bulk of the worms will provide a endless supply of chicken treats (unless I let Roger help me count them). I actually forget about them being in the closet but get reminded when I make salads that I need to give them a couple pieces of carrot or celery or something moist. A five dollar investment and no more than a minute worth of my time a week required to take care of them made it a easy decision. Free fishing bait an NO Roger they are not ready yet to be counted.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

If he would stop eating the fermented chicken feed, I would think he didn't like it. As it is, I am only doing his food because I cannot keep him out of the chicken bucket. Seriously, I think when I was coming in the house, he was more into sneaking out to eat the chicken feed, and then I called him in, fed him, and he
pooped. So it was my fault for not taking him all the way outside (the FF is in a sun room) when I came back in the house.
So now that I am back online, I am going to re-ask my questions. I am not comfortable with the answers I am getting because so many ppl have different ideas. Forgive me if I am annoying you.
1, I have seen "keep water level six inches above", "keep water level 2 inches above" and many pics of the feed just wet, but no water on top. Which is it?
2, Should the dog's FF have bubbles too? All I smell is his food, and it doesn't foam like the chicken feed. Well, not quite foam, but you get my point.
3, The chickens (BR, RIR, Red Star, Partridge Rock, JG and Ameraucana) are all 21 weeks (24 for the Ameraucana). I really thought I would have eggs by now. I swore a BR laid a few weeks ago, but nothing since. Just the Columbian Rock (who laid at 16 weeks). I know about adding light, but if Penny is laying without it, shouldn't they?
4, Using a bucket in a bucket to drain the FF is not working for me. Could the holes be too small? That doesn't sound right, but I am stumped. Then again, maybe it is because I don't have a water level come feeding time. Maybe there just isn't anything to drain.
I really think I need to just go to a 5 gallon bucket, and strain with a strainer.
Oh! One woman said to add ACV every 3-4 days. But she was the only one I saw say it. What do you guys/gals do?

Hi MC, I am so sorry, i realized i missed a bunch of posts

You won't ever annoy me, I want to shout the FF on the rooftops! Its really made all my critters look and act healthier. And saves me a ton of cash too.Here's my opinions, and what i do. Everyone is different. You will find the method that works best for you.

#1 I don't do the 2 bucket setup. That whole thing 2 inches, 6 inches, worked for them, not for me. I do a five gallon bucket of scratch grain. I keep the grain 3/4 full, keep adding more as i use it. Fill with warm water. stir a cpl times a day. i have 5, 2 gallon buckets i ferment of their dry feeds. Poultry/birds, alpaca, dogs, cats and pigs. I use the grain for the birds, 1 part grain to 3 crumble layer ration. that's chicken, guinea, ducks and geese. I haven't added any ACV since i started the grains. The dry feeds, i use about a cup of the grain fluids, fill my bucket about half full of the dry feed. add warm water till i am about an inch above the feed stir well.it absorbs all the moisture and looks thick like drywall putty.

#2 It should, may need to add more ACV to get it started, but the wet feed is still better for digestion. I have noticed the dog and cat feed is slower. I am thinking animal fat/protein in the food? But the fluids off the grain seem to be working for me and bubbling, just takes longer on the dog and cat food.

#3 I don't add light, i started to do it one day when they had stopped laying and had a big guilt trip over it. I looked back, my GLW were born around 4/22, they finally started to lay, first egg was 9/20. My BR is very steady, almost daily since the molts are over, and my EE rarely lays. I have read a lot of stuff on the internet, most "heritage" breeds start pretty late i guess.

#4 hehehe! see #1 i just can't do it that way. too many holes, drill kills my hands. and way too many buckets, i would have a wall of them. If i only did chickens, then i would surely do 2 bucket system. As far as adding so much ACV, wow i won't that's just too much $ spent. Thats not fermented, just adding ACV to the feed. The water from the scratch grain is the "mother" and it really takes off fast. you just need a starter source and a warm area for fermenting..
Hope this helps, if not holler! It will sure make the critters healthier.

 

[cheeka]

Good Morning All! no... GREAT Morning All! Today is my first day off in what... almost 4 months? I slept til 7, felt a bit guilty about that, but the gang didn't seem to mind much... they about dove into the bucket of FF I brought out! I'll let them out around 9am, it's not terrible out, kinda chilly and breezy, but they won't care, I'm sure!

I may give the meal worm farming a try, should have thought of the reptile mat... it's a good idea, and I do have several spots that I could tuck a tank into so it wouldn't be in the way, just have to remember that it's there to begin with...

 

[BullChick]

Ugh! Love snakes. Hate worms. DH asked if I could do the freeze dried ones with rubber gloves on. I didn't think so then, but I asked my Secret Santa for them for Christmas. I am learning that I can do a lot of things I didn't think I could. They need protein, and I want them happy. I will try to give them the freeze dried ones.
The barking happened thismorning. It is squabbling, not anyone sick.

They are arguing about the FF.
The BR that has been coughing has no other symptoms (someone here asked). She is a good weight, and she is actually why I switched to sand. I assume it is the dust that is the problem. I still have more litter to remove from the coop (another section) and run, but I want to figure out what her problem is (is it bad that I wish she would just keel over to aleve my anxiety?).
Anyway! Gotta run. Church in 15 minutes, and I am not even washed yet!

 

[cheeka]

this little peep did not make it. found her half dead this morning, tried wrapping her in a heating pad, got her to take a couple of drops of water, but she died. she was so very tiny in comparison to the others, don't think she was meant to survive. poor chicky. she was so beautiful.

 

[okallthis4eggs]

Ugh! Love snakes. Hate worms. DH asked if I could do the freeze dried ones with rubber gloves on. I didn't think so then, but I asked my Secret Santa for them for Christmas. I am learning that I can do a lot of things I didn't think I could. They need protein, and I want them happy. I will try to give them the freeze dried ones.
The barking happened thismorning. It is squabbling, not anyone sick.

They are arguing about the FF.
The BR that has been coughing has no other symptoms (someone here asked). She is a good weight, and she is actually why I switched to sand. I assume it is the dust that is the problem. I still have more litter to remove from the coop (another section) and run, but I want to figure out what her problem is (is it bad that I wish she would just keel over to aleve my anxiety?).
Anyway! Gotta run. Church in 15 minutes, and I am not even washed yet!

I think if dust was the problem more than one bird would be affected. They all live in the same enviroment and breathe the same air. They love dust baths. Sometimes they do things for attention. Roger has been known to lay on her back with her feet in the air doing the "dying bird" just to get more pie.