Mealworms

nat · **Posted:** Sun Jun 16, 2013 11:20 am

mum breeds these. I found some old photos of the set up I made her. they are from when she had just started.

nat · **Posted:** Sun Jun 16, 2013 11:46 am

You all know my next photo will be a mealworm breeding thingy made out of a blue barrel

Bender · **Posted:** Sun Jun 16, 2013 7:39 pm

Cool thanks for posting those pics nat. I like the idea of some type of mesh so the eggs fall through. At the moment I am using a sieve every couple of days to separate the eggs from the beetles.

Haha imagine how many mealworms you could breed in a blue barrel :-)

Bender · **Posted:** Sun Jun 30, 2013 2:10 pm

I have babies :rock:

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These little guys are tiny and I only saw them because they came to the surface to eat a cabbage leaf. Took me ages to get a decent photo. The old point and shoot camera isn't much good for tiny little creatures! Need a camera with a decent zoom & macro lens.

I'm pretty stoked anyway as I now have the next generation coming along. My beetles are all still alive too and doing their thing laying lots of eggs :thunbs:

nat · **Posted:** Sat Jul 06, 2013 9:52 am

Nice!

Faye · **Posted:** Thu Jul 11, 2013 11:58 pm

Yeeha We have adults, perhaps in a month I can announce we have babies. We have gone fron mealworms to pupae and now to beetles since the 6th June.

Bender · **Posted:** Fri Jul 12, 2013 12:03 am

Faye wrote:

Yeeha We have adults, perhaps in a month I can announce we have babies. We have gone fron mealworms to pupae and now to beetles since the 6th June.

Nice work Faye! Get your magnifying glass out. You will have babies in no time :-)

Faye · **Posted:** Fri Jul 12, 2013 12:59 am

Stupid I know but do we need a male and female beetle, as there is only 3 so far and different colours? Do you know Bender?

Bender · **Posted:** Fri Jul 12, 2013 2:48 am

Faye wrote:

Stupid I know but do we need a male and female beetle, as there is only 3 so far and different colours? Do you know Bender?

Yep definitely need male & female beetles Faye. I don't know how you tell them apart however once you get lots of beetles you will catch them doing their thing.
All the beetles will be light brown for the first few days after they change from pupa and gradually turn black hence the name darkling beetles.

Faye · **Posted:** Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:20 am

How are your mealworms growing Bender?
I now have plenty of mature adults doing their thing and hoping to see some babies soon.

Bender · **Posted:** Fri Aug 16, 2013 10:47 am

Faye wrote:

How are your mealworms growing Bender?
I now have plenty of mature adults doing their thing and hoping to see some babies soon.

They are going really well Faye. I have hundreds of babies now of varying ages.

These are my biggest ones that are in the original container I had my beetles in. I will keep these as my future breeding stock.

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I have three containers with baby mealworms now. I leave the beetles in a container until I start seeing baby mealworms in the substrate. Then I catch out all the beetles and start a new container. This way I'll have mealworms all of similar age in a container. These are my smallest babies eating a banana peel-

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My original beetles are still going strong although I am starting to see a few deaths. Its amazing if a beetle dies the other beetles consume the body. Waste not want not!

Simo · **Posted:** Sun Sep 22, 2013 11:26 pm

I collected about 20 mealworms form the garden today :joy:

Just wondering though, what is the point of growing these for chickens? Would it not be more efficient just to feed the oats and the veggie scraps directly to the chooks?

Bender · **Posted:** Mon Sep 23, 2013 12:37 am

Simo wrote:

I collected about 20 mealworms form the garden today :joy:

Just wondering though, what is the point of growing these for chickens? Would it not be more efficient just to feed the oats and the veggie scraps directly to the chooks?

It's really only a supplement food for them Simo. I reckon my chooks could eat the whole colony in one sitting. I guess its just a simple way of providing a high protein snack to the chooks. It only takes a very small amount of oats and the occasional carrot or banana peel to keep the mealworms happy. I feed a small handful of mealworms to the chooks each day but their main feed is wheat, layer pellets and veggie scraps.

The other selling point for me is my aquaponics system. My silver perch have been very slow and hardly touching pellets over the winter but will smash the mealworms.

Are you going to try and start a colony with your meal worms Simo?

Simo · **Posted:** Mon Sep 23, 2013 2:46 pm

Yep, bit of an experiment for the kids but if successful I might ramp up for fish food.

A few of the bigger ones are curled up on the surface not moving, dead or turning into beetles? :dunno:

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Mealworms

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Mealworms

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Bringing food production home