Trouble raising meal worms

[Jacquie Button]

My 10 year old likes to feed them to the quail but she uses a tiny piece of newspaper to pick them up, lol! I tried to feed one to the dog but she spit it out! I guess that was mean but she wanted to see what I had. She is like a vacuum for all the birdseed that gets kicked out of the cages...weirdo dog!

 

[tigger19687]

Ok I am weird, I just bought 10,000 mealworms............ How many do you put in each big bin?

 

[Jacquie Button]

Oh my! How many chickens do you have? Have you seen the set ups that use the 3 drawers. I guess you could put that many together you just need a large container. You will be doing lots of sorting! I try and separate the stages at least 1x per day.

 

[tigger19687]

I got several separate big bins. Still figuring out what to put where.
Mostly BIG ones in a few big bins. When beetles come I will put in a small bin (rolled oats with screening on bottom so the eggs will fall through) INSIDE a big bin with bran for the eggs.
Then when eggs turn bigger I will move them to another bin just for the medium size worms. Then to the Big boy worm bin when they get bigger.

Yeah a lot of sifting but it will be SO much cheaper in the end.

Only 4 hens, but my son has 2 bearded dragons and they eat a lot !

 

[Jacquie Button]

Oh yeah, I forgot about your dragons. Do you know where the worms shipped from? Just curious to see how far they travel.

 

[tigger19687]

CA for the new batch. The 1st group from NJ

I just realised that I can use crumbles instead of oats or wheat bran. And since I have extra I think I will start the new ones out in that, Oats for the beetles Bin and not sure about egg bin, maybe a mix.

 

[Jacquie Button]

What are you going to do when it gets colder with those sunny California worms!?

 

[tigger19687]

They are inside and be fed to chickens and dragons

 

[tigger19687]

Got a 50# bag of Wheat bran at the grain store in NH for $16 !! I was so happy. I couldn't find it close by here.
Will be easier then the oats I think, well from what I read anyway.

 

[Jacquie Button]

Are you going to cook it first? I wanted to ask the guy I got my worms from if he did that. He also got his wheat bran from a feed store. Those beetles make me mad...they always flip on their backs when I take them out and then I spend more time making sure they are the right way! I'm afraid they won't be able to flip back over? I wonder if it's like a defense mechanism for them? Oh gosh...I'm thinking way to much about this!