How To Grow Mealworms At Home For Quail, Chickens And Ducks.
If you have fed your friendly foul mealworms, you know they go nuts for it. But at least where I come from they are crazy expensive, and freeze dried. I decided to look up how to grow my own. I was amazed, it is so easy! Nothing to it at all, made me feel silly for buying a big bucket of dried ones.
The first thing I did was order some online. Look for someone reputable if you buy online, you don't know what they have been feeding them. I'm going to wait to feed them to my birds in till they have been under my care for awhile.
When UPS showed up the guy looked at us funny, the box had Live insects written across it. It also made a horrible, creepy noise like evil rain from the bugs. We told him quail and he looked confused and drove away thinking slightly different of us then when he pulled in.
The mealworms came in a bag of 2,100 in a box. You should start with at least 500, I started with more just for a leg up on the process.
Get a container, I had this old one in the garage. I cleaned it out and put it in the sun to dry to remove any excess moisture. Moisture, from what I read is the number one thing you have to watch for with raising mealworms.
Then drill holes in the top of the container so your mealworms don't suffocate. That's a sure way to end your mealworm experiment.
Then I poured in wheat bran up about 2 1/2 inches in the container. I poured a few cups of chicken feed on top of that and mixed it in. I had read 2 to 3 inches of dry feed for them to live in and eat.
My cat, Midge, was super weirded out by the sound the box was making.
Now its time to open the worm bag, and face the weird nose.
And dump them into your prepped container.
I grabbed an apple from under the tree and cut it in half, and placed the cut side down in the container to feed the mealworms.
Now its time to put the lid on and stash your worms in a cool dark place. Because like most creepy, crawly things, your mealworms live in the dark.
Thank you for reading! If you like my post please follow me, I appreciate all the love and support I have already received. You guys are awesome!
Growing your own feed for your chickens definitely makes a homestead more sustainable. Thank you for taking the time to provide detailed information and images. This post hasn't yet got the attention it deserves. I will resteem this and have @AmericanPreppers and @Tomtrademore upvote it also. Sending some upvote bots your way as well.
Giving our upvote to support this post. Our followers on facebook will appreciate it as well
Thank you! I hope I inspire them to make their own mealworm farm.
Who doesn't love a good meal worm? Upvoting this
Thank you! Every step to becoming more sustainable is so rewarding.
Thank you so much! Homesteading is such a transformative experience it feels so good to share with like minded people.
I'm following this process now - from what I've read, people often use 3 containers to separate the different life-cycle stages (worm, pupa, and beetle). Are you planning on doing that too, or is there a way to raise the worms altogether in one large container?
That is a great question! I'm thinking I'm going to keep them in the same spot and harvesting them by putting the cut apple in there, waiting ten min. and pulling it out and scraping them off into a bowl. If that doesn't work then I will figure something else out. I'm starting at the simplest and going from there. A lady did that for her chickens and It worked great for her. I usually complicate things so the starting at simple is a new strategy for me. I will do a first harvest update and if I needed to change anything about my first set up. Thank you for the good question @jaymorebeet!
Starting simple seems like a good strategy (it is worms after all right? :)) Ok my questions are super basic, but here goes - so you're talking about using the apple to lure the worms and then feeding those worms to your ladies and gents. But what about the beetles? Do you just keep them in the box and let them do their thing laying eggs until they croak? Thanks @lifemovedbysteem! All this worm advice WHILE i'm eating my lunch...things are getting confusing around here :)
OK! Another good question. I did some reading and thinking on that. When I have a good amount of beetles I will make one more of the same setup for the beetles, just checked the garage and I do have one more container, and see how that works out. Since the boxes are small and I am harvesting regularly for my quails food I'm not sure how many beetles I will be dealing with this early on. If its not to many I will be keeping them all together. Thank you for the questions! It gives me the opportunity to refine my plan. Hope this answers your question, please ask more anytime.
Thanks so much! I need to convince my husband but once he's on board with sharing our house with worms, I'll let you know :)) I'm excited to see more of your worm-journey!!
Thank you @jaymorebeet for upvoting this article by @lifemovedbysteem and for giving your REAL comment. I am randomly selecting real comments to upvote in order to encourage positive community participation.
Awesome initiative @preppers! Thanks a bunch :)
You had me giggling with the bug sounds and the startled cat!
Do you just get the bran at the supermarket?
I have been considering these off and on for a while now, but hubby is freaked out by bugs, so I don't think he'd let me keep them in the house or his shed. I was thinking I can probably get some starters from the pet shops as I'm sure I've seen them for sale there.
And hubby had just confirmed that I'm welcome to breed them, just not anywhere on the property! 😂
Hahaha, funny. I love the married dynamic, I was overruled on something this week too. I got my bran online because I was busy. I bet you could get it bulk in a health food store.
Ok. n an effort to prove that the English can be as self sufficient as the rest of the world, I will order 500 mealworms tonight and set up their new house tomorrow, But I will not eat them. There I draw the line, even if you call us English a bunch of softees.
Wow, what a great idea and so easy! Thanks for the tutorial going to try this for sure. I usually get the dried ones too for my girls here @mother2chicks. I wrote a post on worm mini-earthworm farming a week or so ago. It was fun to play in the worms.
I'm going to have to go back and read your post on the mini-earthworm farm, I have been thinking about doing one of those. Thanks for reading!
Awesome. I love the picture of the cat looking confused.
Midge is my little adventure partner, never has there been a more traveled Cat.
Thanks for sharing your method for growing mealworms! I hope you'll continue to keep us updated as they grow into egg laying beetles. I love the look on your cats face :D
Thank you! I know my cat, Midge is great. All she wanted to be was a pampered princess and she got me to save her an bring her on adventures for ten years. She has camped, sailed, gone on fishing boats way out to sea, road tripped across the states a few times, lived on 5 boats, farmed in MT. She is a great friend. I love her.
Sounds like Midge is a very fortunate cat!
I like to learn at least on new thing every day! You have provided that new thing... Thanks you... I am going to try this, can you let us know were you purchased them from? My chickens are going to be very happy!!!!
Yay! I'm so glad to provide the one new thing! I bought mine off amazon, some people on the internet say that some venders sell them full of bad stuff so I would pick an organic variety if they have those. I just bought one that had high reviews because its a live animal and I wanted them mostly alive when they got to me. You can buy the bran there as well. Cheers!
Thanks, I am definitely going to look into this....
Please let me know when you do, I enjoy hearing other peoples parallel experiences.
I got a bellyRub and this post has received a 2.25 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to: @preppers.
Thank you, too kind. Big smile.