Mealworm farming

[waretrop]

sumi, I did the same thing with a kitchen sieve. Of course, I saved the sieve for future worms and not for noodles....LOL

I just may start up growing them again. I usually have 4 bins going, starting each in 30 day intervals.

 

[waretrop]

@tortoise I think you are asking this. The life cycle is about 3 months depending on the temp and conditions.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

That is so cool - thanks for sharing!

 

[Mini Horses]

Wow.....thank you!!

I've heard they were fairly easy to raise -- unless you are "creepy" about bugs, etc. My dried bag of them is nice!!

But, they are expensive to buy and winter is when I use them. I read that if you place a piece of apple, etc., they will "hook on" while eating and it's easy to remove that piece of fruit to the chickens. Bet THAT is a chicken riot!! I had given thought to either mealworms or red wigglers in containers in my garage a while back but, instead my son moved in there as a temp. All things considered, the worms may have been more pleasant for me.

I'm going to look at the site. Probably staying with dead & purchased BUT, you never know. Thanks for the details.

 

[sumi]

You're welcome! I'm not a huge bug fan, but I find the worms quite inoffensive and not creepy at all. They don't bite or do anything when you handle them and the bugs are o.k. too. It's been interesting seeing them go through their cycle, especially when you catch one half-transformed into the next stage!

@Mini Horses if you start now with some and just keep them going until next winter you will have a good supply by then. Mine quadrupled in the 6 months I've had them, but then I did buy in loads. I think in total I bought about 10,000 worms. Hence the 40 tubs to accommodate everyone comfortably now.

 

[baymule]

Are you selling the worms? What a good "crop" for a small homestead!

 

[sumi]

I won't mind if this takes off, but I still plan to do a bit of this and a bit of that on my future homestead as well... Selling eggs, etc. Milk here, same as you, we can't sell it raw, unfortunately, but I think we can barter/trade with it?

That is so wonderful how things worked out with the owl and a possible milk customer! Funny how we sort-of end up in places for things to happen?

 

[waretrop]

Sumi, Very nice. I raised my own mealworms, wax worms, butter worms and mega worms for my pet stores. I also reiaed my own crickets. My customerser got to know that if they had a baby reptile that I would specially pick small bugs for them. I had them for about 27 years. When I retired I kept a few cultures going to feed the bluebirds. Then I got up to 200 chickens. I could never never keep up with them. They could eat 10,000 every day... I haven't done them for a while but should start up a batch of mealworms soon.

 

[Mini Horses]

Sumi, are you still doing this? How's it going for you?

I had family issues and coming out of all that now, so back into the "hmmm may work" mode. LOL I have a man who raises special mice for live feed to pet shops, lives about a mile away. May be a place to discuss possible distribution.

 

[Mini Horses]

so my patience issues kicked in and I went online to find live shipments.....appears that $100 will cover a good start up! Much less than those $1 per oz bags at our feed stores....which I've known all along. LOL Just wasn't "my" time to grow them.

Since I have several plastic tubs, bedding, feed, space, etc. Could raise them with a small outlay. Nice. Just have to get my head around it.