Imagine you're a Beetle and just minding your business, when suddenly some furry dude pours you and your friends out of your home and starts sifting you... LMAO
Now that you seem to have established the best method, could you make a video (or write down), how many boxes you have, and the contents it has, how often you sift, after how many weeks you think that the mealworms are grown enough to be fed. How do you remove the dead beatles, etc.
Great tutorial bud I'm over in the UK and have a few friends that have chicken reptiles and feed garden birds. The tubs are easily sourced here in the UK thru Asda a Walmart Company. What I was interested in was the mesh sizes of the sieves as I may be able to utilise the sieves from my worm castings. The left over Bran substrate could also be fed into the worm bins. Regards from the UK
Thank you for this video!! I just started a tiny farm, then like a week later I’m at Walmart buying bins and ordering 7000 mealworms!!! I decided to skip the method where the eggs fall through the screen, instead I am doing what you are doing. Sort em. I need more beetles though, I think I’m going to buy some extra pupae on eBay.
I didn’t know there were different colors of Silkies. I’ve only seen white. I like those guys......those screens are nice. I can see why they save you time. Thanks for another great video.
I would love to be able to feed my hens about 1 lbs of them a day or so. That is what I would love to get up to. That and garden scraps I figure would feed my 6 hens fully.
Thank you! I am feeding mealworms to my bluebirds and to my box turtles. As much as the turtles LOVE mealworms, I think they would be in heaven for a few of the beetles!
Happy chickens! I'm feeding the song birds with mine. I just started experimenting with feeding my frass to my compost worm bins. Looks like they're liking it. It's all a fun little adventure!
Great video...I also have mealworms (In Juarez City, Chihuahua Mexico). I do clean them so similar to you. Thank you so much for share your skills and tips. 👍👍👍
Cool video. I am just getting started and I was thinking of getting 2000 large to start. You have validated that choice. I am just looking to supplement protein for chickens and quail.
Thanks, Nice presentation. I'm just starting to investigate raising these things for fishing ( I have a few worm bins now). Do you have a video on the equipment and where to get it for starting? Where are you getting wheat bran? How much is it for a bag?
Thanks so much, this is literally the best mealworm raising video that I've found! I'm vegan and don't want to buy any animal products but since we keep carnivorous animals it's necessary to raise food for them and those sifters will be a huge help. We have silkies too ^_^ glad this came up in my suggested video feed
If you can get food scraps from friends , wether they are vegan or not, the chickens can eat a good bit of it and they help compost the rest. I feed my moms laying flock on compost and meal worms. Also if they break their own eggs the shell is a good calcium source if you don’t want to support seafood farming(oyster shells). Hope this helps
you feel bad about buying animal products xxD cause your're vegan but but you don't feel bad about breeding a insect that has been systemically bred to be murdered to create silk... interesting...
Hi I really enjoy your videos. I’m trying to start meal worms and super worms for my bearded dragon babies. My problem is , I think I’m allergic to the wheat bran. I also have no place to keep all the tubs. Thank you, gramma lou
Ok, I use oatmeal and of course carrots. I've been a bit slack lately cleaning the bins out. I've noticed a lot of fine dust around the older carrot I got very few meal worms this time round and I'm wondering if that "fine stuff" was actually a heap of eggs. Your opinion?
hi, what degree or temperature is suitable for drying mealworm? and how long i have to dry mealworm? I want to dry the mealworm with a fruit dryer. special thanks from you 🙏
Hey Will. Are the five breeding tubs, and therefore (I'm assuming) five grow-out tubs, enough to produce a pint of mealworms every day to feed my chickens? If not, how many breeding tubs and grow-out tubs do you think it will take to get to this level of sustained mealworm production?
Thanks for this great how-to video! It's very timely for me. I am just into the first generation of all my own mealworms grown out ans starting to pupate. I know it's way past time to refresh my beetle drawer, but didn't really know how to easily separate them out. I really like the sifter set you use; it's on my wish list, but it's a bit too pricey for me ATM ($92 CAD is the best price I could find), so I will try to cobble together a DIY version to use until I can afford the real deal. Thanks again for a well done video.
What kind of bran do you use for your substrate and where do you go to buy it in that big bag. I feel like buying bran in bulk like that would be a lot more cost effective.
Have you come acrossed any of yer tubs having Mealworm (Grain) Mites ? If you did, what have you done to get rid of them, yer process of elimination ??
How much money do you spend on the feed for the beetles? Monthly bill? Looks like it costs a little more than it would be to buy the meal worms. Thank You
You never identified the "NEW" special round sifter trays..Green Sifters trays...Where can they be obtained?? Where can we purchase them..Who makes them..Brand name??? I will be anguish for a reply...thankyou...
I just recently purchased darling beetles and mealworms. Unfortunately the baby mealworms all looked dead. How do I know the difference between good baby worms and bad ones. How do I know the difference between good pupae and bad ones. Please advise. Thank you in advance.
Not sure why the host didn't identify the green sifters right of the start for what they are. They are Gold Panning Screens and can be cheaply bought at Gold Panning Supply Stores or Big Box Sporting Stores as well.
That is so true! As a matter of fact, I DEMAND that all of the FREE content be in HD! These FREE content producers who produce really useful videos, which show really useful information must get it into their heads that we lazy americans sitting on our couch getting fat DEMAND that the producers of content stop being so cheap and buy the newest HD video cameras! What is wrong with these lazy, stupid content producers? That is it! From now on i refuse to pay each video producer for their poorly made amateur videos!.....Oh, wait, the content is FREE. MORON.
I loved the video very informative, I have a small question, I noticed you stacked the containers with the mesh on top of each other. Surely they won’t be able to get sufficient air if these are blocked but maybe I missed something
Hi! Thank you so much for this super clear and informative video. I don’t live in the USA, which makes it slightly harder to understand which sifts I need to have. I saw you basically use two of them, one that basically filters all beetles, and one for the ‘big enough mealworms’. Could you tell me which sizes they are? Because man they are expensive here and I’d like to make sure I have the correct sizes. Thanks so much!!
When you used the hot glue gun to glue the screen to the plastic tub lid, is yer glue gun a high heat glue or a low heat glue; cause when I glued the screen to the bottom of the breeding bin for the ‘self cleaning’ system, the glue let go by the next night !
You wrote dates on the rubbermaids.. how long until you check them? Do the beetles not need a source of water? Do you use the frass as garden fertilizer or what do you do with it?
Hello, and thank you for all the videos. I was wondering if you can tell me what sice mesh on the green sifting trays that you use. I can see on the libk that you can buy them separate. And with me ordering from Norway, the shipping fee wil reduce😜 hope to hear from you👍
You should put the substrate in before you dump the worms or beetles in because they can burrow and at least they won’t land on the hard plastic it’s not any harder for you either
Submanca mealworms for chickens are more of a treat, but generally you can breed mealies for so much cheaper compared to constantly buying food. Generally a full cycle for mealworms takes about 6 months, producing well over 500 mealworms when you only started with 100.
tcotroneo I keep them in my basement, which is around 70 degrees. But the mealies make their own heat, and will move closer together if they need warmth.
lamebubblesflysohigh Maybe there are different sifters like that in case you want to sort out large and small beetles? But that is true, he could just use the one sifter. I guess he wants to test out the whole set 🤗
Hello WelcomeBack Maybe i havent searched enough, but i still dont understand why you abandoned the self sorting system (im was going to build one try to raise large quantity ..) now you make me doubting.. Thanks a lot for your work
AutoNomades as my number of mealies increased, it was hard to sort out all the different components in the lowest tub; which ended up being a mix of mealies, pupae and beetles. If you are raising them for a pet lizard, self sorting would work fine, because you won’t need a huge amount .
Thanks for the info, but I have a question. You mention six sifters (minute 2:17) however the link is for 5 and there is no option for choosing a 6 set only a 9. They have an option to order a single sifter, however I have no idea which may be the missing size. Thanks!
Hi Ginger. I've never posted a reply before, so don't know how to include a link. But, I had the same question. Scott, from Space Coast Mealworms, mentions a 6th tray, in one of his videos, labeled as such. Go onto Amazon, where you saw the 5 tray link, and right above the "5 pieces" set, it will say "1/30 inch". You'll have to purchase that one separately. Hope this helps!
The males I think die after breeding while the female may lay eggs for a month and will ether die or continue to mate i think she dies tho but she lays around 500 eggs after breeding
@@s_wozzzie : OMG ! 500 ?!!!! That’s just fukin! NUTS ! Some human females die during labor just having 1 !! Where in the heck do the store up to 500 eggs ? The beetles themselves are small !! With that being said, I need to ask for some advise ! After a 2 week laying period, do you think it would be alright (knowing there’s ALOT of layers that laid) if I took the adult beetles & used them for food, controlling the population ?!!!
One question that I have not seen addressed is why nobody uses a “wild” diet of dead leaves and decayed wood? These resources seem readily available and free. I’m curious why I don’t see anyone using them in mealworm farms. I just received my first 2000, for the same purpose as you, as a feed supplement for my chickens, and I added a handful of dead leaves that I broke down a bit into their bin and they seem to be eating it..
Hi, I have a home mealworm farm of about 18 bins and using natural materials like leaves would be great if I could but the reason I don’t is because of the introduction of other insects, bacteria and molds. I feed a varied diet but for me to maintain a healthy colony, the food and substrate needs to be free of those things. Hope that helps.
Shadow of Juniper Hill I see your point, but a healthy strong colony that provides optimum nutrition to my flock of chickens is one that can weather certain molds, fungi, and bacteria.. That resiliency will be passed down to my flock and in turn me when I eat their eggs/meat..
@@tcotroneo you have to give mealworms some kind of fruit & veggie because thats how they get their water. you cant leave water in their container or you'll get mold and the mealworms will drown because... worms are dumb..
Tentacle Hub understood.. my point was adding other elements (decaying wood, leaves, etc.) in addition to the feed and low moisture veggies.. I’ve added the natural wood and dry leaves and the worms eat and interact with the natural material, so I’ll continue to use..
Hello friend, I follow your channel and I have seen all your videos, thanks for the content. I have several questions that I would like you to answer: How do you do the breeding cycles? Do you perform separation of larvae, pupae or beetles? Do you separate by sex? How do you calculate the production? What type of substrate do you use? The same for larvae and beetles? Thank you very much in advance.
Thanks so much! How many beetles do you recommend in each pin? I was tired of driving 30 miles to get mealworms and only half be alive. So found somwonw around who was getring out of mealworms and gave me 1500 mealworms. Now i have so many beetles and it seems crowded... I know over 1000 beetles for sure
Home grown mealworm can be fat and healthy and lively, compared to store bought. Just know that beetles seek out and kill pupae ferociously, so they must be separated as soon as possible.
Can I do this in my garden shed or will the cold or hot kill them? Iv got a normal worm farm in there and it's going well just not sure if mealworms are different with temperatures
Imagine you're a Beetle and just minding your business, when suddenly some furry dude pours you and your friends out of your home and starts sifting you... LMAO
ARMAGEDDON!!! 😂
@@Nibbles2point0 Wormageddon! 😂
Proper Gander 😂😂😂😂😂 Hilarious
Hahaha right! Lol
So, like an alien Abuct!on 😏 nice
Now that you seem to have established the best method, could you make a video (or write down), how many boxes you have, and the contents it has, how often you sift, after how many weeks you think that the mealworms are grown enough to be fed. How do you remove the dead beatles, etc.
Thanks for taking the time to make this.
This is by far the best video I have ever seen for raising meal worms!
Me too!!
Another thing my mealworms and Beatles love is hard ground up dog food, and also a different mixture of ground cereals.
We used the green sifters for gold mining. Long time ago.
Wow! Cool looking chickens!
They are called silkie chickens. Very friendly hens
Cool man you're helping me save money thank you and God bless you
hi, thank you from france, i start my litlle mealworm farm for my chikens 3 month ago, this insect are so productif ,it's crazy..
Permaculture Autonomie so crazy, and so easy 😊 Thanks for watching!
Great tutorial bud I'm over in the UK and have a few friends that have chicken reptiles and feed garden birds.
The tubs are easily sourced here in the UK thru Asda a Walmart Company. What I was interested in was the mesh sizes of the sieves as I may be able to utilise the sieves from my worm castings.
The left over Bran substrate could also be fed into the worm bins.
Regards from the UK
Thank you for this video!! I just started a tiny farm, then like a week later I’m at Walmart buying bins and ordering 7000 mealworms!!! I decided to skip the method where the eggs fall through the screen, instead I am doing what you are doing. Sort em. I need more beetles though, I think I’m going to buy some extra pupae on eBay.
Just keep feeding the mealworms so they can pupate
Great idea. I plan on getting chickens soon. Your silkies are gorgeous & look so healthy!
I didn’t know there were different colors of Silkies. I’ve only seen white. I like those guys......those screens are nice. I can see why they save you time. Thanks for another great video.
I would love to be able to feed my hens about 1 lbs of them a day or so. That is what I would love to get up to. That and garden scraps I figure would feed my 6 hens fully.
Thank you! I am feeding mealworms to my bluebirds and to my box turtles. As much as the turtles LOVE mealworms, I think they would be in heaven for a few of the beetles!
Happy chickens! I'm feeding the song birds with mine. I just started experimenting with feeding my frass to my compost worm bins. Looks like they're liking it. It's all a fun little adventure!
A tunnel system for your birds?? Don't let the CIA know you've gone underground ! :-)
Great video...I also have mealworms (In Juarez City, Chihuahua Mexico). I do clean them so similar to you. Thank you so much for share your skills and tips. 👍👍👍
Cool video. I am just getting started and I was thinking of getting 2000 large to start. You have validated that choice. I am just looking to supplement protein for chickens and quail.
Great system - thanks for the video. 👍
Love your channel! This video has been a big help! Let's have an update on your operation!
Now the pupae sifter is a game changer.
Thanks, Nice presentation. I'm just starting to investigate raising these things for fishing ( I have a few worm bins now).
Do you have a video on the equipment and where to get it for starting? Where are you getting wheat bran? How much is it for a bag?
Thanks so much, this is literally the best mealworm raising video that I've found! I'm vegan and don't want to buy any animal products but since we keep carnivorous animals it's necessary to raise food for them and those sifters will be a huge help. We have silkies too ^_^ glad this came up in my suggested video feed
If you can get food scraps from friends , wether they are vegan or not, the chickens can eat a good bit of it and they help compost the rest. I feed my moms laying flock on compost and meal worms. Also if they break their own eggs the shell is a good calcium source if you don’t want to support seafood farming(oyster shells). Hope this helps
You keep chickens but you won't eat eggs because you're a vegan? Lol...
you feel bad about buying animal products xxD cause your're vegan but but you don't feel bad about breeding a insect that has been systemically bred to be murdered to create silk... interesting...
Helpful tips, thank you
This video was so helpful thank you!
Great method. Thanks for sharing.
I live in florida wondering should you have mealworms in a shelter or is it safe from pests outside
Hi I really enjoy your videos. I’m trying to start meal worms and super worms for my bearded dragon babies. My problem is , I think I’m allergic to the wheat bran. I also have no place to keep all the tubs. Thank you, gramma lou
You could be allergic to the frass. Wear a mask, gloves and long sleeves when dealing with mealworms.
Great video! What brand of wheat bran do you use?
I am so glad to see you wearing a mask Ever since I developed mealworm allergies, I have been screaming about people wearing masks due to the frass.
What did you mean? What's wrong with mealworms
@@coleweede1953 Did you even read the comment?
Great! I like the video. Thank you. Also, the music is awesome!
Ok, I use oatmeal and of course carrots. I've been a bit slack lately cleaning the bins out. I've noticed a lot of fine dust around the older carrot I got very few meal worms this time round and I'm wondering if that "fine stuff" was actually a heap of eggs. Your opinion?
hi, what degree or temperature is suitable for drying mealworm? and how long i have to dry mealworm?
I want to dry the mealworm with a fruit dryer.
special thanks from you 🙏
This really helped feed my blue tongue skink. Thanks
The 4 dislikes were mealworms getting fed to lizards
Maybe I missed it but why do you want to sort out the pupae? To make more beetles? Are they too tough to feed to the chickens?
Thank you for your video. I am wondering what your investment had been to get to the point of feeding your flock on the mealworms?
Hey Will. Are the five breeding tubs, and therefore (I'm assuming) five grow-out tubs, enough to produce a pint of mealworms every day to feed my chickens? If not, how many breeding tubs and grow-out tubs do you think it will take to get to this level of sustained mealworm production?
instructables has a nice tutorial and build plan for a tower system to grow about 1 lbs of mealworms a week. Pretty detailed if I say so myself.
adorable chickens
Great video! Def going to use this method when i expand my chicken flock. right now i have a smaller meal worm farm set up, so sorting is much easier.
I’m trying to learn how to do this for my birds…what do you do with the pupae you collected?
Hey,
I wonder how much mealworms you can produce from such a set up in a month?
good question.
That many bins? Not very many, enough for several chickens but not much more.
Lucky chickens. You are spoiling them but they hopefully are repaying you with a lot of eggs. Need to do this for my chickens. Thanks.
Your video is very helpful thank you so much❤️
What do you do with the frass
Thanks for this great how-to video! It's very timely for me. I am just into the first generation of all my own mealworms grown out ans starting to pupate. I know it's way past time to refresh my beetle drawer, but didn't really know how to easily separate them out. I really like the sifter set you use; it's on my wish list, but it's a bit too pricey for me ATM ($92 CAD is the best price I could find), so I will try to cobble together a DIY version to use until I can afford the real deal. Thanks again for a well done video.
try using a deep frying basket
Its basically a classifier not to expensive online
What kind of bran do you use for your substrate and where do you go to buy it in that big bag. I feel like buying bran in bulk like that would be a lot more cost effective.
Have you come acrossed any of yer tubs having Mealworm (Grain) Mites ? If you did, what have you done to get rid of them, yer process of elimination ??
Those are actually classifier screens. Often used in gold panning.
How much money do you spend on the feed for the beetles? Monthly bill? Looks like it costs a little more than it would be to buy the meal worms. Thank You
Thanks for the video well presented
You never identified the "NEW" special round sifter trays..Green Sifters trays...Where can they be obtained?? Where can we purchase them..Who makes them..Brand name??? I will be anguish for a reply...thankyou...
Search “green sifting trays” in Amazon.com
I just recently purchased darling beetles and mealworms. Unfortunately the baby mealworms all looked dead. How do I know the difference between good baby worms and bad ones. How do I know the difference between good pupae and bad ones. Please advise. Thank you in advance.
Not sure why the host didn't identify the green sifters right of the start for what they are. They are Gold Panning Screens and can be cheaply bought at Gold Panning Supply Stores or Big Box Sporting Stores as well.
How often do you change the oats?
Wouldn't it be easier to move straight to the final screen and pick out the food bits. It would end the same and be quicker. At least for the beetles.
At the end of the video your chickens were coming out from underground. Do they have an underground coop???
scott also sells pupae sieve that fit inside the green sieve.
That is so true! As a matter of fact, I DEMAND that all of the FREE content be in HD! These FREE content producers who produce really useful videos, which show really useful information must get it into their heads that we lazy americans sitting on our couch getting fat DEMAND that the producers of content stop being so cheap and buy the newest HD video cameras! What is wrong with these lazy, stupid content producers? That is it! From now on i refuse to pay each video producer for their poorly made amateur videos!.....Oh, wait, the content is FREE.
MORON.
I watched Scott's video just yesterday.
I knew who you were talking about as soon as you mentioned green sifters.
Catch you on the next sift!
And how long to you let them breed before you harvest each time?
I loved the video very informative, I have a small question, I noticed you stacked the containers with the mesh on top of each other. Surely they won’t be able to get sufficient air if these are blocked but maybe I missed something
Hi! Thank you so much for this super clear and informative video. I don’t live in the USA, which makes it slightly harder to understand which sifts I need to have.
I saw you basically use two of them, one that basically filters all beetles, and one for the ‘big enough mealworms’. Could you tell me which sizes they are? Because man they are expensive here and I’d like to make sure I have the correct sizes.
Thanks so much!!
Agreed, also wondering this.
Did you ever find out?
What isn’t the 3 pan sizes u use smallest to the third larger one please and ty
Great I found an update but long ago.. how r they ?
Hey, very nice setup! I was wondering if there's anything to update pros/cons? Thx :)
I never thought about removing deformed genetics, good idea.
When you used the hot glue gun to glue the screen to the plastic tub lid, is yer glue gun a high heat glue or a low heat glue; cause when I glued the screen to the bottom of the breeding bin for the ‘self cleaning’ system, the glue let go by the next night !
Try scoring/ sanding the surface of the plastic to help the glue bond to the surface.
You wrote dates on the rubbermaids.. how long until you check them? Do the beetles not need a source of water? Do you use the frass as garden fertilizer or what do you do with it?
what’s the point of the biggest sifter? it didn’t catch any beetles, so what’s its purpose?
Where did you get your beetles? Did you have to order them on Ebay?
Hello, and thank you for all the videos.
I was wondering if you can tell me what sice mesh on the green sifting trays that you use. I can see on the libk that you can buy them separate. And with me ordering from Norway, the shipping fee wil reduce😜 hope to hear from you👍
Great video! What do you do about dead beetles in your beetle bin? Do you need to pick them out by hand? Or do the live beetles just cannibalise them?
Love your video! Learned a lot!
What are the hole sizes of the sreens that you are using thanks for this video.
Those are some fluffy chicken
TinyTornadoTurtles they are silkies and frizzles.
I'm sure you have already been told, they are Silkies. Sweet, sweet chickens.
You should put the substrate in before you dump the worms or beetles in because they can burrow and at least they won’t land on the hard plastic it’s not any harder for you either
Just curious do you know what the advantages are to feeding the chickens mealworms vs store bought food besides cost?
Submanca mealworms for chickens are more of a treat, but generally you can breed mealies for so much cheaper compared to constantly buying food. Generally a full cycle for mealworms takes about 6 months, producing well over 500 mealworms when you only started with 100.
Should i feed mealworms before they turn into pupae?
Best mealworm vid I’ve watched.. thx. What is the optimal temperature range for mealworms?
tcotroneo glad you enjoyed! Thanks for the comment 😊
tcotroneo I keep them in my basement, which is around 70 degrees. But the mealies make their own heat, and will move closer together if they need warmth.
My mealworms like the 65-75 degrees. I caught mine wild and I think they're pretty happy. They were outside in the 40 degree weather
Do you have holes for air in your grow bins
why bother with first 2 sifters is that third one is all you need to catch all of them? (first sifting for beetles)
lamebubblesflysohigh
Maybe there are different sifters like that in case you want to sort out large and small beetles? But that is true, he could just use the one sifter. I guess he wants to test out the whole set 🤗
He specifically stated it was for carrots and other food bits
Do the eggs fall through with the frass?
Hello WelcomeBack
Maybe i havent searched enough, but i still dont understand why you abandoned the self sorting system (im was going to build one try to raise large quantity ..)
now you make me doubting.. Thanks a lot for your work
AutoNomades as my number of mealies increased, it was hard to sort out all the different components in the lowest tub; which ended up being a mix of mealies, pupae and beetles. If you are raising them for a pet lizard, self sorting would work fine, because you won’t need a huge amount .
Where’s a good place to buy beetles and the sifters?
In the video you show 6 sifting trays, but the URL you provided shows 5 sifting trays. Which mesh sizes are needed?
Where did you buy your sifters? Also, what do they charge?
enjoyed watching video i just start mealworm farm to provide good sources of protein to some of my silkie breed
Thanks for the info, but I have a question. You mention six sifters (minute 2:17) however the link is for 5 and there is no option for choosing a 6 set only a 9. They have an option to order a single sifter, however I have no idea which may be the missing size. Thanks!
Hi Ginger. I've never posted a reply before, so don't know how to include a link. But, I had the same question. Scott, from Space Coast Mealworms, mentions a 6th tray, in one of his videos, labeled as such. Go onto Amazon, where you saw the 5 tray link, and right above the "5 pieces" set, it will say "1/30 inch". You'll have to purchase that one separately. Hope this helps!
nice looks like a good set up, do you know how many mealworms you produce on a average in one month?
gaming pyro clips getting about 8 lbs a month, and still growing 😊
QUESTION : After the beetles shed from the pupa stage, how long do the beetles live for ?
The males I think die after breeding while the female may lay eggs for a month and will ether die or continue to mate i think she dies tho but she lays around 500 eggs after breeding
@@s_wozzzie : OMG ! 500 ?!!!! That’s just fukin! NUTS ! Some human females die during labor just having 1 !! Where in the heck do the store up to 500 eggs ? The beetles themselves are small !! With that being said, I need to ask for some advise !
After a 2 week laying period, do you think it would be alright (knowing there’s ALOT of layers that laid) if I took the adult beetles & used them for food, controlling the population ?!!!
One question that I have not seen addressed is why nobody uses a “wild” diet of dead leaves and decayed wood? These resources seem readily available and free. I’m curious why I don’t see anyone using them in mealworm farms. I just received my first 2000, for the same purpose as you, as a feed supplement for my chickens, and I added a handful of dead leaves that I broke down a bit into their bin and they seem to be eating it..
Thats a good question.
Hi, I have a home mealworm farm of about 18 bins and using natural materials like leaves would be great if I could but the reason I don’t is because of the introduction of other insects, bacteria and molds. I feed a varied diet but for me to maintain a healthy colony, the food and substrate needs to be free of those things. Hope that helps.
Shadow of Juniper Hill I see your point, but a healthy strong colony that provides optimum nutrition to my flock of chickens is one that can weather certain molds, fungi, and bacteria.. That resiliency will be passed down to my flock and in turn me when I eat their eggs/meat..
@@tcotroneo you have to give mealworms some kind of fruit & veggie because thats how they get their water. you cant leave water in their container or you'll get mold and the mealworms will drown because... worms are dumb..
Tentacle Hub understood.. my point was adding other elements (decaying wood, leaves, etc.) in addition to the feed and low moisture veggies.. I’ve added the natural wood and dry leaves and the worms eat and interact with the natural material, so I’ll continue to use..
Hello friend, I follow your channel and I have seen all your videos, thanks for the content.
I have several questions that I would like you to answer:
How do you do the breeding cycles?
Do you perform separation of larvae, pupae or beetles?
Do you separate by sex?
How do you calculate the production?
What type of substrate do you use? The same for larvae and beetles?
Thank you very much in advance.
Thanks so much! How many beetles do you recommend in each pin? I was tired of driving 30 miles to get mealworms and only half be alive. So found somwonw around who was getring out of mealworms and gave me 1500 mealworms. Now i have so many beetles and it seems crowded... I know over 1000 beetles for sure
Samantha Acker I have a thousand in each of my bins, but that was a fairly arbitrary choice :/
Home grown mealworm can be fat and healthy and lively, compared to store bought. Just know that beetles seek out and kill pupae ferociously, so they must be separated as soon as possible.
Where do you get those bucket sifters? All I can find are the bigger trays. I like these much better...
Once u get the beetles can u feed them to leopard geico? Over time it seams like id have alot of beetless an an nothing to do with them but breed them
Why do the first two levels? Why not just start with the 3rd?
The sifting trays look very similar to horticultural substrate sifters, the metal looks fairly sharp- do the beetles get injured? Like lose legs?
you have to be the 1st to ask out loud if the beetles are injured.
Thanks 👋👋👋
Can I do this in my garden shed or will the cold or hot kill them? Iv got a normal worm farm in there and it's going well just not sure if mealworms are different with temperatures
I same to do a thing like that for my chickens too escape from predators underground in a pipe or something