I will be watching this thread! Ours are still on starter gro, looking forward to giving them treats! Where do you get the meal worms?
Hello TheLoveShack,
Stormy Autumn is right - pet stores are your first point of call. But if you want to save dollars in the long run, you can either farm your own or buy directly from the distributor. I'm not familiar with farming meal worms, but I've seen other threads on this forum with clear instructions.
Here in Queensland - Australia they have a distributor of meal worms who sells them in different tub sizes and they are packed in oatbran. They start at 10g tubs and go all the way up to 1kg boxes. However, 1kg is not easy to fit in your fridge! You need to store them in the fridge so that they essentially go into hibernation and can last longer. We usually buy the 100g tubs because we get a good deal if we buy two tubs at a time. 100g is made short work of by a flock of four chooks for lunch, but they will be so bloated and lazy afterwards that they'll just nap the rest of the afternoon away!
Keep in mind that you can also find meal worms in two sizes. They have regular meal worms which are like fat caterpillars, or giant meal worms which look like large centipedes/millipedes. My chickens tend to shy away from the giant meal worms but they gobble up the regular size in no time.
Your pet store might also sell other bugs like crickets, grasshoppers, woodies (cockroaches) and earthworms. However, meal worms is the best source of protein while crickets, grasshoppers and woodies are better balanced and have both calcium and protein. The only catch is, woodies and crickets move/jump fast and your chooks will go wild chasing them. Try to put the container on a flat surface such as concrete or tile so that they don't escape before your chooks can eat them.
Cheers,
Gold Coaster
This egg was laid by my ISA Brown (Red Star) chook called Rosie just this morning. The egg on the right is 65g and was laid by my Black Star called Dawn.
